


trust me when i say i'm your biggest fan

by aohatsu



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-19
Updated: 2012-10-19
Packaged: 2017-11-16 15:30:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/541018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aohatsu/pseuds/aohatsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David wakes up to his alarm clock, the <i>Ghibli Studios</i> one his siblings had all put their allowances together to buy him for his twelfth birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	trust me when i say i'm your biggest fan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [carolion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolion/gifts).



> So this was 8,000 words yesterday, and it's 20,000-something words today. I worked hard, okay. Much appreciation goes out to my cheerleader!beta's: everindelible, blookie and rajkumari905. I love you all. ♥
> 
> This fic is... weird. And started off because I wanted Archie to meet MWK!Cook because Carolyn loves MWK!Cook and it was her birthday present! Unfortunately, it's so much different than that, that the only similarity is the fact that Archie time-travels. Yep. Enjoy reading!

Cook is usually a pretty good driver. He follows the rules of the road—maybe not perfectly, like, if the speed limit is forty, he’ll probably do forty-five even with David saying, “ _Cook—_ ” and basically never gets tickets. Well, this one time, he got a ticket, but David actually thinks it’s just because the police officer didn’t  _like_  his music. (Which is really rude, actually, and the ticket was like $700 and oh my Gosh.) 

But typically, Cook isn’t a bad driver. He definitely never drives crazy, or drunk, or—

There’s a truck, and it has really big wheels, and deep black bars hanging off the side on the top, and it’s shiny red like it’s brand new, and it slams into them before Cook can try and swerve out of the way. David feels the painful pressure his seatbelt is putting on his chest as the momentum of the car forces him forward, and the breaking glass in front of him stings on his skin before the air bag can push its way out.

It’s really—it’s quiet, before his head slams backwards onto the chair, when the air bag finally emerges and hits him, and then he can’t see anything at all, or hear anything at all, and he can’t even think  _Cook—_

 

 

David was twenty, and it was the tenth season of American Idol, when Cook asked him out for the third time. 

It’s the third time, but David’s heart had been beating so loudly in his chest that he couldn’t hear his brain throwing those reasons he’d said no before at him. He knew—he knew what they were: God, and his Church, and they wouldn’t approve, he knew that, and his family would be so surprised and confused and worried about him, and his Dad would be so angry, and what about his career, because if he started dating Cook, things would change, he knew they would, and—and  _it was Cook_ , how was he supposed to date  _Cook_? 

But everything was just—the girl who had just won was still crying, exhausted and overwhelmed, and she was trying to sing at the same time, and the audience was trying to help out, and everyone was singing and screaming and moving and there was confetti in the air and reporters were yelling questions and the judges were talking so fast, and the contestants were all mulling around, the new ones and the ones from past seasons and Cook was just staring down at him, his mouth quirked like,  _Hey, have to give it another shot while we’re here._

And it felt like if David said no, he would miss out on everything he had ever wanted.

He said, “I—okay. Yes? Let’s—let’s do it.”

But while saying yes was all great and stuff, actually finding time to go on a date was really, really difficult, and David frustratingly almost regretted saying yes. He’d have rather lived all alone as a hermit for the rest of his life, the old guy with too many cats, than try to figure out how to spend one evening with—well, whatever Cook was, in-between the stages of having been asked out and actually going on the date. David had been pretty sure, at that point, that he couldn’t call him his boyfriend—but was also reasonably sure that he was more than just a friend? It was confusing, and it was so  _hard_. They finally managed to make a date for a dinner at a Japanese Sushi Bar, though, and David had wanted to spend two hours switching between shirts and worrying about his hair, but had ended up coming right from an interview and they ate sushi together while he was all gross and sweaty from working all day.

Cook kissed him goodnight though, with one of those stupid jokes distracting David just long enough to actually be able to do it without David jerking away out of—embarrassment? Nerves?

It was amazing, and David wanted to do it again, and again, and again, and they didn’t get to for another month and a half. That’s sort of how it went for, like—six months, because of Cook’s tour. When he finished though, it got a little easier. They had enough time to get together at least once a week, even, and that was kind of weird too. They ended up mostly just staying at Cook’s house and watching movies or listening to music or watching a football game with Neal and Andrew and Andy and Cook all trying to explain what was going on because David was kind of clueless on the rules or— _ow_ , why would they tackle him like that  _anyway_?

David lost Dublin, once. He opened the door with a bag of groceries in-hand, and Dublin stole out of the house before David could drop the bags and chase after him. He ended up running all around the neighborhood yelling, and a neighbor even tried to help, but Dublin was—Dublin had just disappeared, and when Cook got home, David had broken down and cried and apologized. Cook had pulled him into a hug though, and within like, an hour, they got a phone call that somebody had found their dog, if they wanted to come pick him up?

David had been so relieved that he’d forgotten to be nervous when Cook started kissing his neck after, and they’d ended up having sex for the first time, and that was pretty amazing too, and David wanted to do that again, and again, and again, too. (Cook didn’t really mind, so it kind of worked out in David’s favor. He never even had to ask, which was, um, good.)

They dated like that for a year and a half, and on David’s twenty-second birthday, Cook asked him to move in with him. It was—it was a no brainer, by then, and even though the press literally had a field day and like, took pictures of them moving David’s stuff into Cook’s house, he was so  _happy_  that it didn’t even matter.

They were happy.

David was in love with Cook, and Cook  _loved him back_.

And then that red truck slammed into them on the highway.

 

 

David wakes up to his alarm clock, the Ghibli Studios one his siblings had all put their allowances together to buy him for his twelfth birthday. It was kind of weird, actually, because that alarm clock was still at home in Utah, because he’d been kind of embarrassed to bring any of his old anime stuff with him to live with Cook, and besides, his sisters were more into than he was, he just thought—anyway, it was  _weird_ , but he’s not really a morning person anyway, so he kind of—waves it off and buries his face back into his pillow and reaches a hand out for Cook.

It’s not even that weird that Cook isn’t there—they work really weird hours sometimes, and lots of times Cook isn’t there when David goes to bed, or wakes up, and vice-versa, so, it’s not weird that Cook isn’t there. It is weird that his hand collides with the wall though, and he blinks his eyes open during a yawn to look around and see how exactly he’d maneuvered himself in his sleep.

This isn’t his room.

Or, well—it is. It’s his room, just—in Utah. What?

He sits up, and the blankets that fall off his chest are the old blue striped ones that his mom threw out when he got that new red pair from his Abuelita for his seventeenth birthday. He needs—he needs to wake up, he thinks, and before he moves again he slaps himself. (Not the best idea in the world, he thinks, after, but at least he’s not still half-asleep.)

Except—except he has to be dreaming, right? Or he just somehow forgot that he was visiting his family, and that his mom bought old sheets that look the same as his old ones, and that poster on the wall of Kelly Clarkson must not have gotten ripped down during that fight he’d had with Daniel after all—

He sort of wants to lie back down and go back to sleep until he wakes back up and things aren’t trying to confuse him, but his door pushes open and his mom slips her head through, and says, “Mijo, you’re going to be late for the bus if you don’t get in the shower before Amber wakes up.”

David tries to say, “Bus?” but can’t get the word out before his mom slips back out, and oh my Gosh, he’s definitely dreaming, like, memories, of high school, when he always had to wake up before Amber because she refused to take showers in the morning, had to have baths even though they took  _way longer_  than showers and—oh my Gosh.

He practically trips when he climbs out of the bed, and he runs to pull open his door before his mom goes down the stairs, and she blinks back at him like he’s crazy or something (which maybe he  _is_ , he’s standing in his underwear in the hallway about to ask his mom if he’s from the future, or something—time travel totally isn’t real, right? This is just—a really weird dream).

“Never mind,” he says, and walks into the hallway bathroom, and goes pee, and then gets in the shower, and brushes his teeth with his old toothbrush, the Lion King one, and when he walks back out, into the hall, he can smell his mom’s omelets’ from downstairs, and so he goes downstairs and sits at the table and stares.

At the omelet.

“Mijo,” his mom says, “Are you okay?”

“I think I’m still dreaming,” David says, honest. His mom laughs at them though, and rubs his shoulder before walking out, yelling, “Daniel! You’re going to miss your bus!”

David doesn’t eat the omelet. Something about dream food is making him worry, like how it was in  _Spirited Away_ , when her parents ate the food and turned into pigs and—

He’s sixteen.

This is—

_He’s sixteen._

He needs to figure out how to  _wake up_ , because—because he doesn’t want to be sixteen again. He’s pretty happy being twenty-three, to be honest. He has a career and his music and his home and his car and friends and family and  _Cook_. It’s just a dream, he thinks, as his mom pushes him out the door with Claudia and Daniel, and that’s the old white bus that takes them to their private school, and Daniel is groaning about being awake this early in the morning and Claudia is looking for Owen already, to sit with him, and Ashley tugs David down next to her when he’s walking down the aisle, his backpack hanging off his shoulder.

Ashley smiles and says, “Guess what! I got the permission slip forms for the Church Retreat during break, here, I totally have yours, you just need your parents to sign it and put the down payment in the envelope for Mr. Westendorf to—“

“The Church Retreat?” David repeats, looking at her. She looks so  _young_ , he hasn’t seen her in a few years, to be honest, their lives being so different now. She’s married to Devin, the boy sitting five rows behind them, his arm around his girlfriend, Anna, before they get to school and aren’t allowed to touch affectionately like that. They have a little girl named  _Breana_ , and Ashley—Ashley looks sixteen.

Just like he did, staring at himself in the mirror this morning, undefined chin and too-soft cheeks and funny looking hair. Just like Daniel, actually looking younger than David still, or—sort of, at least, with his hat tilted backwards until the bus driver tells him to put it away and Daniel whines but does it anyway, and just Claudia, who’s shorter than ever and her hair is straight, unlike the perm she has now, and—

Oh, man.

“Yeah, for the end of next summer? You remember? You promised, David, come on!”

David remembers the retreat she’s talking about, because he’d had to leave early for the American Idol auditions. That—that happened. Will happen. And why if this is a dream does he feel the way the bus is rocking underneath him, and why isn’t he waking up, and why does it feel—why does it feel  _real_ , and why is he scared that it  _isn’t_?

But that would just make him crazy, and it has to be a dream.

The logic of his last though doesn’t apparently reach his stomach, because he ends up throwing up and gets sent home before he even goes to his first class.

 

 

“Why didn’t you say you felt sick, David?” his mom chastises him in the car on the way home, because she’d had to come get him at the school even though he’d been sick  _on the bus_.

David mumbles an apology and stares out the window, and tries not to see his reflection, where he looks—that’s not him. It is, but it—he’s  _twenty-three years old_. He has his own car, and he doesn’t go to school, and his mom wouldn’t come pick him up if he got sick now,  _Cook_  would, because Cook is a worrier, and would never let him drive himself home like that, and—and if this is  _dream_ , and David is remembering all of this, does it mean Cook doesn’t  _exist_ , because he didn’t know him back then?

What about Benton? Neal? Michael and Carly and Brooke? 

“You’re father’s going to be upset you got sent home,” his mom says, mostly talking to herself. 

David jerks his head up and says, “Dad still lives with—“ but of course he does. Everything is all—it’s as if David actually  _was_  sixteen. Everything is—it’s the same, and so different, but the same as when he was sixteen and it’s—it’s weird and crazy and when is he going to wake  _up_?

His mom sends him a look, and her eyebrows are furrowed, like she’s contemplating taking a hand off the wheel to check his temperature again.

She made him go back to bed, and when she left to get him medicine, he moved to look around and see if he could find his cellphone. He didn’t have one when he was sixteen, not before he got his job at the theatre, which he won’t get for another two months, judging by the dates on the calendar, and—he doesn’t even have a laptop, yet. In the end he ends up climbing back into bed and closing his eyes, and praying that when he wakes up, Cook will be there to laugh at him for having weird dreams.

 

 

He wakes up when Amber, (she’s  _nine_ ), cracks his door open and pokes her head through, and says, “David, are you sick?”

David turns his head in his pillow, saying no, but less to Amber and more to  _life_. He can feel her climb onto the foot of his bed and she says, “You must be reeeeeeally sick to come home from school early. I wish I was sick.”

David lets out a short laugh, even though this is—the weirdest thing ever.

“ _Amber_ ,” comes their mom’s voice from the doorway, and Amber jumps off of David’s bed and runs out of the room, saying, “I was just seeing if he was okay! He’s been sleeping all day!”

“And we don’t want you to catch it! Go do your homework, and then you can play.”

His mom puts a water bottle down next to David’s arm on the bed, and she slips a cold hand against his forehead. “Are you okay, baby? Your forehead doesn’t feel hot…”

“I’m okay, mom,” David says, or mumbles, more like, and her smile looks like a frown because he’s looking at her kind of upside-down. It works for his messed up perception of the world right now anyway. “Can I use the laptop?” he asks, suddenly (and bravely, because his sixteen-year-old self would never ask to use his mom’s laptop when he was sick, that’s for sure) and his mom makes a surprised noise before backing up.

“No, mister, you can use the laptop when you haven’t just missed a day of school.” She smiles brighter though. “You’ll be better in no time. Oh, and I signed that Church Retreat paperwork you brought home. I think it’s a good idea, and your father agrees.”

“Thanks,” David says, slowly, carefully, because he hasn’t been to church in a year—not since he moved in with Cook, anyway. It’s not that the church didn’t accept him—they loved him, invited him every Sunday. No, it was that they didn’t—they didn’t accept Cook or his relationship with Cook, and they kept wanting to—to ask him why he’d “gone to the dark side”. Or, well, that’s how Benton described it, when David had been complaining that one time.

And so he’d decided that worshipping in private was just easier than the sad looks he’d get at the services.

“Mom, I—can I use the laptop, please? It’s important,” David tries again, and his mom hums under her breath.

“Alright. Half an hour, because that when your Dad gets home. And this is only because you look so sad and I’m worried about my baby. And don’t tell Daniel.”

She brings it back a few minutes later and David props himself up on his pillows against the wall, and lifts the lid. It’s an old laptop—his mom has had it for a few years now, since he was on the _Search for a Star_  competition and they got like, however much money, he doesn’t even remember really how much. He clicks the little internet explorer button and waits for the page to load before immediately typing up google, and searching  _David Cook_.

5,300,000 results.

Most of them are lawyers, or there’s a dentistry office too.

He closes his eyes tighter and flexes his hands, and types in  _Midwest Kings_. Because when David was sixteen—when David was sixteen, Cook was twenty-four, in Tulsa, with Andy and Neal and some other guys, playing in MWK like they were rock stars waiting to be found. It takes him to a myspace, and there’s the MWK symbol, the big circle with MWK written in it like a square, and there’s even music, but there are no pictures, and for some reason, David needs to see a picture to be sure that—

That this isn’t just a dream.

That something weird happened.

That he’s  _sixteen_  again.

That he’s in the past?

That he’s not crazy.

He clicks a link in the comments, and it snaps over to youtube, and the video is focused on Andy, and the music is really awfully recorded, and the picture is all pixely, but he can see, in the corner—oh, Gosh, that’s Cook.

That’s Cook when he was twenty-four, playing guitar in band with some friends in Tulsa—before he won American Idol, before the Anthemic, before he met  _Archie_. 

When he throws up again, and his mother runs into the room, he thinks—Cook might—Cook might not know who he  _is_.

He’s definitely crazy. He has to be.

When his dad gets home, David blubbers out a poor explanation of how he thinks something happened, and he’s not supposed to be there, he’s supposed to be in  _L.A._ , and he’s not sixteen and _please please please_ —

His parents yell a lot and make an appointment at the clinic, thinking he’s delirious and sicker than his mom had thought. David just wants to—he doesn’t know. Maybe he is crazy, but if he tells them the truth, that he thinks he’s from—from the future?—they’re just going to make him get therapy and nothing will change—or go back to the way it was before. 

And he can’t, for the life of him, remember what could have made this happen anyway, so how is he supposed to fix it?

 

 

The doctor spends an hour looking at his heartbeat and his pulse and he even has to pee in a cup, but in the end says, “I believe it’s just stress.” He asks a bunch of questions—are there problems at home, has he been under any new responsibilities lately, etc.—things like that. David shakes his head to all of it.

His parents end up taking him back home and he falls back into his bed automatically, trying to sleep.

To be honest, he doesn’t know what else to do.

What else is there?

 

 

He goes to school the next day, and everyone puts his weirdness down to him being sick—like when he forgets his science teacher’s name, or what chapter they were supposed to have read for English. Ashley stays close and reminds him of some things—like the English thing, and that the main character’s name was  _Henry_ , not  _Harry_. Choir, at least, he thought, would be easy, and at first it is. He sings—he loves singing, he’s  _always_  loved singing, but somewhere in the second song Mrs. Lansbury is looking at him cautiously, and he realizes he’s singing like he’s not afraid of choking on the song and forgetting how to breathe.

And he had been, when he was sixteen, terrified of—of singing too much, of ruining all he had left, even though as it turned out, he had  _a lot_  left. 

“David,” Ashley says, slowly, when they’re on the bus, headed home after school. “You—“ She looks at him though, and stops. David thinks, when he and Claudia and Daniel all climb off the bus that he probably didn’t look like he wanted to be asked questions. He almost feels bad, except—if Cook were there—if Cook were there, he’d grin and push his fingers over David’s waist, tickling him until he starts laughing and forgets why he’s upset at all.

Cook isn’t there.

 

 

David is still half-expecting to wake up every time he wakes up. Like—wake up, wake up, not—whatever. It’s like a physical pain every time he opens his eyes to see that silly Ghibli Studios alarm clock blinking at him, instead of Cook’s messed up hair covering the pillow next to his. It’s not even just Cook that he misses, anymore—he misses Dublin, he misses his  _music_ , and his career and his fans and Andy and Neal and everybody who comes over on the weekends to watch football with Cook and he misses his family—the family that he’s grown up with, Jazzy when she’s twenty and going to college and always talking about that Juan kid in her graphics class, and Claudia with her cat that just got pregnant for the  _third_  time and doesn’t Cook think they need to add another member to the family and—

He just misses his life.

“Daaaaaaaavey,” Jazzy calls, and David gets up slowly from where he’s lying in his bed still. It’s Saturday, so there’s nothing pressing to get up for—no school or Church, that is. There’s definitely no concerts or shows or interviews or press junkets or studio sessions or writing sessions or planes to catch or taxi’s waiting for him. He’s pulling on his old baggy clothes, and realizes how much his fashion style has changed in the past six years.

Maybe—maybe he could get his mom to take him to the mall, today. He could drive—he found his permit sitting atop his desk yesterday, and it’s not like he doesn’t know how to drive anyway. Maybe he could even convince her to let him go take the test—and then he could drive on his own. Maybe he could—make this  _better_.

“Hey, mom,” David says when he hits the bottom of the stairs, and she looks up from where she’s sweeping the floor.

“Yes, mijo?”

“Do you think we can go to the mall? I’ll drive. I need the practice, right?” David says—asks, and he smiles a little, and she must just be happy he’s out of his room and talking because she drops the broom and says, “Of course!” before calling for everybody to get ready to go out. 

David pulls on his jacket and thinks about apologizing for being so—solemn, for the past week. He’s never been one for feeling sorry for himself, and he thinks his mom has probably been really worried. He smiles as big as he can when she hands him the keys and everyone piles into the car. Daniel says, “I don’t want to  _die_ , Mom—“ until their mom says, “Daniel Archuleta!” and David laughs, for the first time in a while, and says, “Don’t worry, Daniel, I know how to drive.”

“Okay, sweetie, do you remember—oh,” his mom says, as David puts the key in and turns on the ignition, checking his mirrors and letting his foot carry the break as he turns his head and looks out the back window, slowly backing up out of the driveway. It’s not the car he’s used to driving, but it’s comfortable, and normal, and feels like the first ‘adult’ thing he’s done in ages.

“Alright,” his mom says, slowly. “Speed limit’s twenty-five here.”

David knows that, but he keeps quiet anyway, and listens to Jordin Spark’s  _Tattoo_  play on the radio as he gets on the highway, and his siblings are all talking in the back, and his mom keeps saying, “Good job, wow, honey, you’re doing so well!” at every turn.

He remembers actually learning to drive was not so easy.

Not that he really wanted a do-over.

They slow to a stop at a traffic light, and his mom says something that he doesn’t quite catch. There’s a kind of dingy looking red truck across the intersection, with headlights that are turned on even though it’s the middle of the day, and it’s not like the driver  _needs_  them on. It drives past him, the paint looking almost—shiny.

“ _David_ ,” is the sound that makes him jerk and look around at his mom, smiling gently. “The light’s green, honey. You can go now.”

The mall is packed when they get there, fifteen minutes later. He should have expected it, because it is a Saturday. He sits in the car, staring at all the people, as his family gets out, and he has an honest-to-God terror in his chest, because—because—he can’t go into the mall with that many teenagers and expect to, what, be fine? Not be attacked? It’s Murray, and everyone knows who he is, and the last time he went to the mall without someone—a bodyguard—it was with Cook on the Idol Tour and they literally  _had_  been mobbed until they’d had to run all the way back to the taxi and safety.

But he isn’t famous, right now.

Nobody knows who he is.

He swallows, and takes the keys out of the car, and gets out.

“David,” Jazzy says. “Good job on not killing everyone.”

Daniel snorts, and everyone laughs, even David. Eventually, he has to wake up, right? He can just—enjoy the benefits of, whatever this is until then, like spending so much time with his family and being able to go to the mall without signing fifty autographs’ in-between stores.

That gets a lot harder, after American Idol.

He might as well enjoy it while he can.

 

 

“What are you looking for, baby?” his mom asks in JCPenny’s, as David looks at jeans with a scrunched up look on his face. 

“Um,” he says, “Jeans? Mine are—they’re really big, I think.”

“I thought you liked them baggier,” she says, but she grabs three pairs off the rack anyway, and David stares at the dubiously until she adds, “Go try them on!”

He grabs a few shirts too, ones that his manager would actually let him wear, and tries on the clothes. They fit, at least, and he feels—better, almost. More like him, maybe, than his sixteen-year-old self.

Daniel goes the video game store and Jazzy and Amber manage to drag their mom to the toy store. David snags permission from her to head across the street to the library and Claudia comes with him. They look at books for a bit, until David finds the computer area and sits down in front of one.

“Who are you looking up?” Claudia asks, pulling a chair in next to him, and David hesitates. Then he closes his eyes and breathes, and says, “Um, David Cook? Somebody at school—recommended him. Said he was a good singer, so I wanted—I wanted to see?”

“Oh,” she says, and then waits for David to type his name into YouTube. It takes some searching, actually, but then he finds what he’d been looking for:  _Analog Heart_.

Claudia makes a face when  _Porcelain_  starts, but David is frozen still. That’s Cook’s voice. That’s  _Cook’s voice_.

It’s Cook’s voice.

“David, are you okay?” Claudia asks, suddenly, and David realizes that his eyes are wet, and he has tears dripping down his cheek. He rubs at them with his new shirt sleeve and says, “Yeah.”

He gets up and walks a few aisles away, and Claudia looks after him but doesn’t follow.

It figures that as soon as he blinks away all the tears, a girl would bump into him and drop all of her books on the floor. “Oh my Gosh, sorry,” he says, and bends down to help her pick them up. 

“Not a problem,” she says, laughing. “It was sort of my fault. I was—anyway. Thanks.”

“Aw, no, it wasn’t your fault,” David tries.

“I’m Rebecca,” she says, looking at David clearly when they’ve stacked all her books up again.

“Um, David,” David replies, smiling a little.

“There’s a place to sit down, over there,” she says, gesturing behind David, “if you wanted to come—talk? Or something?” She bites her lip, and while sixteen-year-old David wouldn’t have got it, twenty-three-year-old David does.

He smiles again and raises his hand, and says, “I’m actually ta—“

And his stomach flips when he realizes he just lifted his hand up to show her his ring, the one Cook bought him on Christmas, last year. It wasn’t—it wasn’t an engagement ring, or anything, because they had—they had talked about that, and they weren’t  _ready_  for that—but it was—

He doesn’t have it anymore.

He doesn’t have his ring anymore.

“I have a boyfriend,” he says, finally, practically choking it out, and her eyes go wide before she says, “Oh! Oh, okay, sorry.”

But that’s true. He  _does_  have a boyfriend. Cook is— That isn’t gone. That’ll never be gone, because it’s not a material—it’s not something people can take away, or move, or delete, it—it’s just there. Claudia’s still on the computer, and David can recognize  _Don’t Say A Word_  from where he’s standing behind her when he approaches. Cook is still here. David just—has to let Cook know that he’s here too.

 

 

He figures it out in the school library three days later, when he skips lunch to look it up. It’s one-thousand, one-hundred, sixty-four point eighty-eight miles—roughly twenty-eight hours there, and another twenty-eight back. It’ll cost about three-hundred dollars. 

David could get on a bus in Salt Lake City, and go to Tulsa, and find Cook.

He just doesn’t know how he’ll convince his parents to give him three-hundred dollars. Technically, he knows he has it—it’s just, when he got money from  _Search for a Star_ , his parents took enough to pay the bills they were struggling with, and put the rest in a trust for him. It was for college. 

David can say without hesitance that he doesn’t need it, for college. But they’re not going to see it that way.

 

 

“Mom—“ 

“No, mijo! What do you mean, three-hundred dollars for  _what_?”

“It’s—Mom, I know it’s a lot of money, but it’s my money, and—”

Jeff interjects, “Your money—when did you get such a mouth on you?”

His mother crosses her arms, “It is money for college, David, for you and your brother and sisters. Or have you changed your mind about that? It’s yours—why should you have to share?”

“That’s not—“ David says, and he lets himself fall into a sitting position on the couch, and puts his face in his hands. He breathes, and tunes out his parents as they continue to lecture him. He breathes. “This is important to me,” he says. “It’s—it’s  _music_ , mama,” he tries, and sees it in her face when it shifts the argument to his side.

“Music?” his Dad says, eyebrows furrowed. “What’s in Tulsa?”

_Cook_ , David thinks, frantically, before swallowing and saying, “There’s—this band. They’re incredible.”

“Are you talking about that guy, what was his name? David—“

“Cook, honey. David Cook. He’s Davey’s favorite singer. Claudia likes him too now, right?”

David’s only half-frozen where he’s sitting. The thought of his parents knowing Cook—knowing of Cook, before American Idol—what happens if he changes things this much? 

“So, you’re wanting to go halfway across the country to see a concert?” his Dad says, sighing and shaking his head. “What about American Idol? Isn’t that what you want to spend your money on, now that you’re sixteen?”

“Jeffrey—“ his mom says—hisses, almost, because the sixteen-year-old David Archuleta had wanted to go on American Idol more than anything—but his voice wouldn’t let him. He’d been too scared.

“Can’t I do both? I’ll make it, on American Idol, I promise you that. Just let me go to Tulsa first.”

His dad’s eyes are wider now, and his mom’s mouth in a round little ‘o’. “You’re saying—if we let you go to this concert, you’ll try out for American Idol? You will  _try_ , David? No giving up halfway there.”

David breathes. “Yeah.  _Yeah_.”

“Alright,” his dad said, after a long moment. “If it’s that big of a deal—we’ll all go: family vacation.”

 

 

His dad refused to let David go on his own—which, really, he should have realized that was never going to happen. His dad was strict, but he loved his children too much to let them ride a bus three states over for a concert. Twenty-three-year-old David could have done it—sixteen-year-old David, not so much.

It was—weird, how he didn’t even mind all that much. Maybe because he was thankful—he wasn’t even willing to think about what he was going to do when he saw Cook again. He couldn’t think about it, or he’d drive himself crazy.

They were set to go the week after school ended, which was the last week in June, and three weeks before David was set to go to the youth conference with Ashley. Then the American Idol auditions were right after that—so close he was going to have to leave early, again. He remembers how all this worked the last time he did it. The question he had though—and that he refused to think about answering yet—was what was going to change after he saw Cook again.

Once he had Cook back—he didn’t think he’d be able to just leave and go back to Utah until Hollywood Week.

He didn’t want to think about it.

Before school ended, his mom said, “Alright, since you’re doing so much this summer, David, your father and I have agreed it’s probably best for you to have a cellphone.”

He programmed all of his friends’—his  _friends_ , he thinks wryly, because he hasn’t actually talked to most of them in years—numbers in, because they all ran up and wanted to text him and call him on it. But the first number he’d added was Cook’s. It didn’t work, of course—it wouldn’t be his phone number for another six years, almost. But—it was good, to have it in there, under _Cook, David_.

It’s the only number he even had memorized, anymore.

Claudia saw it when she was laying on his bed one day, helping him recall how to do algebra (he thinks he did know how to do it, when he was sixteen, more or less, but he has no  _clue_  how to do it now). “David,” she said, incredulously, “did you program a fake number for David Cook in your  _phone_?”

“What?” David said, startled out of the math, looking at her instead.

“You have a serious problem,” she said, dropping the phone on his bed. “I mean, beyond the fact that he’s a  _guy_ , he’s a famous guy you’re never going to meet. Putting his name in your cellphone is going a bit far, don’t you think?”

“That’s—Claudia—“

“David, it’s  _weird_  how obsessed with this guy you are. You like forced our parents to take a trip to Tulsa just so you can see him do a show; you’re always on mom’s laptop looking up videos of him, and I don’t think you’ve had anything but his album on your iPod for the past two months. Plus all the random stuff you know about him—you know every single tattoo that he has, like, in intimate detail. You’re turning into a stalker.”

David is frozen at his desk, looking at her with wide eyes. 

Claudia thinks—he’s one of his— _those_ —fans: the crazy ones who know everything about him, from his favorite movie to the color of his underwear that day. But that’s not what this is, it’s—he’s in love with Cook, real love, not—he’s not a  _fan_ , he’s—he’s Cook’s boyfriend.

But how is he supposed to explain that to Claudia? He can’t. He  _can’t_.

“I was just testing out the contact list earlier,” David mumbles, and reaches for the phone. He looks at Cook’s name, and pauses on the delete button before putting it back down on his desk. “It’s—whatever, Claudia.”

He doesn’t remember fighting with Claudia when he was sixteen. She stomps out of his room anyway.

Maybe changing things—like this—maybe it isn’t a good thing.

 

 

David passes all his classes, um, somehow. It’s kind of a miracle, to be honest, because he had no idea what he was doing on most of them. (He actually studied this stuff back when he was sixteen? Gosh, that’s crazy.) His dad is already settling him down, saying, “Alright, we need to think of a couple songs for you to—“ the last day of school when David shrugs and says, “I’ll Be. The judges will like that one. And, um, I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing.”

He sings them both to prove it, even though he  _knows_  it, but his dad makes him pick out a few back-ups anyway. Then they practice—and his Dad looks surprised, somehow, every time, and David wonders how different so much experience makes him sing—using the piano too, until Friday, which is when they pack up their bags for the weekend in Tulsa.

Claudia is excited about seeing the Midwest Kings play too, and David is wondering how he’s going to, well, basically, ditch her. And he feels really bad about it, he does, but it’s not like MWK plays at actual concert halls, okay, they’re going to be in a bar, and Claudia’s totally not old enough to go into a bar. Not, that, um, David is, either, anymore, but—he’ll figure it out.

Generally, the airport people totally pat you down everywhere and it makes David really hate flying—but in 2007, it's not as invasive. It’s nice, he has to admit, being in the past. Or—whatever, he is, sort of, like in the past. That’s what it is. He’s either in the past or he’s having one heck of a dream. (He’s mostly still betting on the dream idea. He hopes—he just—he really needs to see Cook. When he thinks of him now, it’s a little blurry, like a long past memory, and—and he just misses him so much it hurts.)

The plane is crowded, and David ends up squished between an elderly woman and Jazzy, and they both fall asleep on him halfway to Tulsa. At least, he thinks, it’s only a two hour flight. (Two hours—Cook is just two hours away from him; and it’s taken this long—it sucks, is all.)

It’s hard, when they get off the plane, for David to resist running down and searching for Cook. He knows, like, Cook isn’t there—he knows that. But he’s so—he’s excited, and his mom is laughing at him and grabbing his hand as if he was six-years-old again instead of sixteen, as if to make sure he doesn’t run off and get run over by a baggage cart.

“Mijo,” his mom says, as they grab their bags. “Mijo, can you grab Amber’s—“

“I’ve got it, Lupe,” his Dad says, grabbing Amber’s pink suitcase, because David is craning his neck over the sea of people, even though it’s crazy to think that just because they’re in Tulsa now—just because they’re in Tulsa, he’ll see Cook walking through the airport, or down the street as they ride in the taxi to the hotel, or in the hotel lounge while they’re checking in. He can’t help but look though. He has to  _look_.

Cook is closer to him now that he’s been in months. David can’t  _wait_.

“When is the concert again?” his Dad asks, once they get all their stuff into the hotel room. 

David has it memorized: “Nine o’clock.”

“Alright,” his dad says, hesitantly. “You’ll be back by two? And you have the directions? Money? Phone?”

They’d agreed to let David and Claudia go by themselves to the concert because Amber and Jazzy were already falling asleep after the plane ride and it’s only five. (And they’re both old enough to go to a concert, they explained, and are really mature and stuff, so.) Daniel just didn’t want to go, which is probably good—David doesn’t know how he’s going to get to Cook without Claudia as it is.

Besides, with a taxi, it’ll be easy to get there and back.

Their mom kisses their cheeks when they leave, and Claudia has a big smile on her face when they get into the taxi and wave goodbye to their parents. It’s kind of weird for her, David thinks. At sixteen, he’d never done anything like get in a taxi without his parents to go to a concert—at twenty-three though, he’s done it every day, practically. His excitement over getting to see Cook seems to cover any of his weirdness up though.

David gives the taxi driver the address of the bar MWK is playing at tonight—a bar? A club? Something like that, anyway, and hums under his breath while Claudia talks about how amazing they’re going to be.

She has no idea, really.

He can’t stop strumming his fingers on his knee, and bouncing his knees on the floor of the car. It’s Cook. It’s  _Cook_ , he’s going to see  _Cook_. The taxi driver says, “Here’s the place,” and they pull up outside a middle-sized brick building in part of the city that looks pretty active. People are walking along the street, and the lights of various bars and restaurants are still on, and there’s music coming out of a few buildings. Claudia grabs his arm and says, “Here’s the place?”

David looks at her, and says, “It’s not as bad as you think. Come on.”

He forgot though, when he gets to the front door, even as the familiar sound of  _Make Me_  spills out of the building, that he looks like he’s sixteen. His sister is standing behind him, dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, and doesn’t look much older. 

“Um,” he says, to the man standing there, looking bored. “We want to see the band? It’s, um—the Midwest Kings, right? MWK.”

His heart feels like it’s in his throat.

“You’re not 21, kid,” the guy says, giving him and Claudia a once over.

“But—“

“Sorry, kid. You’re not getting in the bar.”

“David,” Claudia says, looking nervous and tugging on his jacket. “We can just—“

“Yeah,” David says, his heart plummeting back into his stomach. He  _knew_  he looked sixteen—he is sixteen. But it hadn’t really occurred to him that they wouldn’t let him in. He’s just—he’s—

It’s weird how it happens, right then, though. The doors kind of slam open, and two girls with short skirts and tight jackets stumble out in high heels, and Claudia jumps and clutches his arm when a loud, big guy follows them out. But David isn’t looking at them—because he can see, through the open doors—he can see, fifteen feet away, is David Cook. He has a guitar in his hands and the bolded black lettering that says  _AC_  standing out clearly. 

David can’t move. He’s just—he’s just staring, just—that’s Cook, with—with bad hair and a face that’s clean-shaven, and a ripped t-shirt with baggy jeans and an awkward vest snapped over the shirt, because Cook doesn’t really understand fashion when he’s twenty-four.

The doors slam closed again, and the door guy says something before somebody else opens the doors again to walk in. David has no idea what the guy is saying, or why Claudia is tugging on his arm so hard now, he’s focused on the glimpse of Cook that he’s getting.

That’s Cook.

He’s  _twenty-four_.

Claudia says, “ _David_ ,” because people are looking at them now, like, what are those kids doing here, they’re not getting in, and it’s—David has no idea. What is he doing, in Tulsa, looking for a guy who has no idea who he is? Because that’s a fact that suddenly feels thrown in his face. The man on that stage up there, with his hands curled on his guitar and fingers attacking the chords, with his mouth close to a mic, singing back-up behind Andy, with that look his face, that look that says he’s happy, and content, and doesn’t need David—

_—that Cook doesn’t know who David is_.

He won’t for—for a year. Until David does  _Crazy_ , and Mike and Cook sit in the audience and clap along with everyone else when he’s done, with Syesha and Brooke and Jason and Carly and Kristy and Simon and Paula and Ryan and Randy and—he won’t know David until they’re both on American Idol. He won’t know—he doesn’t know David, because he hasn’t met him yet.

And David technically hasn’t met Cook yet. He shouldn’t know that he should call him Cook, and he shouldn’t know how many siblings he has, or how many tattoos and what they stand for, or how much he loves music, or how when he was little he wanted to be an actor, not a singer, or that he secretly enjoyed the first Twilight movie, or that his mom has a book filled with all his embarrassing photos, like the one when he was four and had the chickenpox and his mom took a picture of him sad and miserable and spotted in the bathtub when the dog had decided that he liked bubbles  _too_ , or that he had his first kiss when he was ten, and it was because he best friend decided she wanted to be his girlfriend instead (and it was awful), and that he has  _Baby, Hit Me One More Time_  memorized from start to finish, or anything, anything like that.

David isn’t privileged to that information yet.

Cook wouldn’t want him to know all of that yet, because Cook doesn’t know any of that about him—hasn’t cornered the story about his cats out of him yet, or the story about being left outside in the middle of the night in his pajamas, or how he secretly wishes he was a little more sporty, like Daniel, or how terrified he was when he stopped being able to sing.

“David,” Claudia says, louder, and David jerks back, and spins his wrist so that he can wrap his hand in hers and run in the opposite direction—anywhere else but towards Cook.

He’s already been sixteen, he thinks, desperately. He’s already been sixteen, and seventeen, and eighteen, and—

He’s going to have to do it all over again. He’s doing  _everything_ , all over again. To get back, he just—start from the beginning. He ends up dropping Claudia’s hand a block down, and sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, shaking because everything feels so impossible. He can hear Claudia saying, “David? David! What’s wrong? I’m calling Dad!” but doesn’t respond.

He’s just working on breathing, right now.

 

 

When his mom grabs him by the shoulders and yanks him up, it hurts more than it should—just for a second, it’s like he can’t breathe, how she’s holding on so tight, like he was—like he was dying, like there was a hard pressure just  _pushing_  on his chest, unrelenting. He chokes back the sudden need to cry and tries to pay attention to what she’s saying.

“-vid, David, what’s wrong, baby?”

He mumbles  _nothing_ , and holds her back, and closes his eyes, trying to calm down. 

He ignores the yelling when his parents leave the room, leaving him to sleep in the hotel bed by himself, the door cracked open—his Dad saying, “We shouldn’t have let them go on their own!” and his mom’s short protest. He ignores it when his mom starts asking, “What’s wrong with Davey?” and his dad answers: “Teenage rebellion?”

Or at least—he tries to ignore it.  
 

 

 

“Hey, David?” Ashley says, holding her chin up with her hands while he sits at the family piano and plays a song.

“Yeah?”

“You know I hate you, right?” she says, but she doesn’t look angry. Just—contemplating. 

He lets out a short laugh, because she’s said it three times today, ever since he called her to let her know he wasn’t going to go on the Church Retreat. “I’m  _sorry_ ,” he says back, also for the third time. He’d explained that he was going to do American Idol, of course, or else it would have seemed really random. When he’d actually been sixteen, he’d been—he hadn’t thought he was going to make it through the first audition of Idol, let alone to the Top 24, or Top 10, or Top  _Two_ , but now he knows that he is—he  _knows_  it. So he doesn’t mind telling everyone that that’s what he’s doing, this time around.

Ashley sighs and rolls onto her back, her hair falling out against the carpet.

“So, if you make it, we can’t go to prom together, can we? Even though you said yes when I asked you.”

David winces, and his fingers stop moving on the keys. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I didn’t, um, mean for it to work that way?” 

She shrugs—awkwardly, from her position. “It’s okay, if you beat the asses off of everybody else in the competition.”

He flinches at the sound of Ashley cursing, and blinks back the weirdness of it. He starts playing again, and this time starts singing along, “ _If I could fall into the sky, do you think time would pass me by, because you know I’d walk a thousand miles, if I can just see you, tonight._.”

“Yeah,” Ashley says, after a moment. “You’ll definitely win.”

 

 

“Alright,” David says, tired. He opens his mouth to sing, and closes his eyes: “ _The strands in your eyes that color them wonderful, Stop me and steal my breath, Emeralds from mountains and thrust towards the sky, Never revealing their depth, Tell me that we belong together, Dress it up with the trappings of love, I'll be captivated, I'll hang from your lips, Instead of the gallows of heartache that hang from above. I'll be your cryin' shoulder, I'll be love suicide, I'll be better when I'm older, I'll be the greatest fan of your life._ ”

_I’ll Be_  has been one of his favorite songs since it came out, and he’s know the lyrics by heart since he was thirteen, or something like that. But his father’s made him practice it again and again—for hours. And he gets it, sort of—American Idol is the big chance, still. But where David knows what to do, his father is still anxious, and doesn’t know what the judges need to see in order for that golden ticket to switch hands. 

He finishes out the song, and yawns when his father suggests they practice  _Joyful, Joyful_  next.

 

 

He still listens to his copy of Analog Heart—the copy he downloaded illegally and then burned but whatever, it’s not his fault, he couldn’t find a copy available to actually buy!—when he goes to bed, and Claudia still glares at him when she hears it, because she’s still kind of—madish about the whole, um, bar mishap in Tulsa. (David can’t really blame her.)

He puts on  _Silver_  as he crawls under his comforter anyway.

 

 

The producers for the first audition let him through, and even though he knew they would, his heart had been fluttering in his chest the whole time anyway—he’d even messed up on the words, for a second, but one of the women there had smiled—so maybe it was endearing that a sixteen-year-old kid would mess up on the words out of nerves? He’s not sure, really. It hits him that a lot of Idol was about luck, and being in the right place at the right time. 

He works harder.

 

 

At the second auditions, in September, he feels just as nervous. And even though he feels kind of—whatever,  _sneaky_ , about it—mentions the fact that he’d had a paralyzed vocal cord not so long ago, to the people there. The producers have that same  _story!_  look on their faces that they had had the last time he’d auditioned, and it only makes him feel a little bit bad. It’s not like having a sad story from when he was kid is what gets him to the top two of American Idol anyway, and it’s just—he’s not taking any chances, is all. He has to make it through this, he  _has_  to.

And—and it was true. It was scary, at the time, even if it’s not  _anymore_ , the whole vocal paralysis thing, so—he only feels a little bit bad, anyway, is the point.

He sings  _Waiting on the World to Change_  when he sees the judges, just like last time, but he doesn’t mess up on the words this time, and for whatever reason, Randy doesn’t join in. It makes him feel even more nervous, like—did he mess up? Did he do something  _wrong_?

But Simon says, “That was great, David,” and Randy agrees while Paula um, does the whole—squishing, thing, which is still weird, kind of?—and he has three yeses, and a golden ticket, and he stumbles out of the room with an awkward, “I—thank you!” He’s a little in a daze when he walks out through the doors and his Dad and Aunt both hug him before he has a chance to clear his head. It’s weird, how—how this all feels new, but like—like déjà vu at the same time.

But when the camera guys have him say, “I’m going to Hollywood!” he doesn’t even have to pretend to be excited. The next step is Hollywood Week, then, and everyone—all of his friends, Brooke and Carly and Johns and  _Cook_  are going to be there. It’s like—he’s going back to his own life, now. Or—starting, anyway.

He can’t help but be excited about that.

 

This time, the plane ride to California feels—a little less imminent. David has a plan, sort of. He’s going to sing  _Crazy_  on the piano and then he’ll sing  _Heaven_  and he’ll make it into the Top 24 with everyone. Okay, so it’s less of a plan, and more of a… fact? But it’s a goal, and he’s focusing on it, because he can’t mess up and change things so that he gets kicked out during Hollywood Week, or something. He remembers how brutal it was, and how much luck was involved. He hums  _Crazy_  the entire plane ride—so much that his Dad finally puts headphones on about halfway there, rolling his eyes. 

“It’s, um, sunny,” he says, loudly, raising a hand to his forehead to shade his eyes, when they step out of the airport, pulling their suitcases on wheels behind them.

“It’s Hollywood,” his Dad says, grinning at him. It hits David that that sort of thing isn’t going to last much longer, his Dad, grinning and helping him carry his luggage through airports and hotels.

He smiles back, a little sad, but happy actually—to be seeing it again when he didn’t really think he ever would again, not like—like this, anyway. He’s noticing things like that more now—now that he isn’t stuck in his own head, trying to figure out what had happened. Now that he’s just… going with it, basically.

It’s been a few months. He doesn’t really have a choice  _but_  to try and just go with it, as if it was natural.

It’s easy enough to find his room when they get to the hotel, because he sort of remembers where it had been: third floor, towards the end of the hallway. There’s lots of people milling around, yelling and singing and dragging suitcases in and out of rooms. He and his dad finally push their way into their room, and his dad heaves David’s suitcase onto one of the beds. It snaps open and some of his t-shirts fall on the floor, along with his burned discs, all with his handwriting messily spelling  _sara bareilles_ ,  _bryan adams_ , and  _david cook_.

Ashley had jokingly added a heart with red permanent marker onto the Analog Heart one, all around Cook’s name, and his dad turns to him with an eyebrow raised when he sees it. David flushes and grabs it, and says, “Ashley—“ before his dad waves his hand and shakes his head. 

“I don’t need to know.”

David feels flustered anyway, like he’s a kid with a schoolgirl crush or something, and his dad just found his secret shrine to, whatever, Justin Bieber. Actually, David’s pretty sure Justin Bieber hasn’t been discovered yet.

_Weird_.

 

 

“ _I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind. There was something so pleasant about that place, Even your emotions had an echo, in so much space. And when you're out there, without care, yeah, I was out of touch. But it wasn't because I didn't know enough; I just knew too much. Does that make me crazy?_ ” David sings easy, calm, and concentrates on keeping his voice in tune—Crazy’s kind of a hard song to perform, just because it’s so  _fast_ , let alone while accompanying himself on the piano. He’s practiced it a lot though, and he knows he’s doing fine—good, even. He can tell by the way the judges are looking at him. “ _Does that make me crazy?_ ”

He can’t help but look for Cook in the audience, even though he knows Cook wasn’t there the first time; didn’t see Archie perform until  _Heaven_ , during Hollywood Week.

He closes his eyes. “ _Does that make me crazy?_ ”

When he finishes, the judges give him the pass—and even though he basically knew that he was going to, um, you know, make it, he’s still so relieved and excited and kind of anxious all at the same time. He kind of prances off the stage, giddy and, whatever, tingly, and he might say the exact same thing to Ryan that he said seven years ago. 

Maybe.

He doesn’t remember what he said in interviews seven years ago, really. (It’s just—there’s been a lot of them. Like,  _a lot_  of them. A crazy amount, even, and it’s kind of hard to believe that what happens to him  _does_  and  _has_  and is about to happen again, and okay, he’s excited all over again, like he’s really just—sixteen, and just got through the Hollywood round, and—

And that’s when he sees Cook. He’s sliding out the backstage door, into the long hallway where a lot of people are sitting, or eating, or practicing for their own turns, or jumping ecstatically if they made it through, or, um, crying, if they didn’t—but David doesn’t really notice any of them, so much as registering that they’re there. His dad is there too, and puts a hand on his shoulder, like, “Good job, son!” but David just  _isn’t paying attention_ , because that’s—that’s Cook and he’s smiling—laughing even, almost bent double over with laughter, and he’s got his guitar, slung behind his back, and that’s—that’s Michael there, he must have been the one to say whatever it was that’s making Cook  _laugh_  so much. He has really stupid hair, David thinks, fondly, not even realizing that his feet are—are moving, on their own, his sneakers slapping against the tiled floor as he just—takes off, sort of, in a, whatever, he’s practically  _running_ , and it’s crazy,  _he’s crazy_. 

Cook’s really—

He can’t help it. 

He stops running when he collides with Cook, startling a, “What the hell—“ out of him and pushing him back about a foot before he wraps his arms back around David too, if just for balance. All David can think about is the fact that he can feel him. Cook is  _warm_ , hot even, and maybe even a little damp, like he’d been out in the hot sun for a while, because he smells a bit like sweat too, although he must have tried covering it up with that weird old fruity cologne he’d used, before the make-up ladies had gotten all, um, product savvy, at them, in the top twelve, or whatever, because he kind of smells like peaches too. 

He’s big, like he just—surrounds David, arms and torso and everything, like he’s everywhere.

He just feels good.

“Uh—kid?” Cook says, hesitantly breaking the silence David had imposed on the three or four people around him, and David can hear Michael say, “Do you know him?” before his father’s voice jerks loudly in the middle of everything.

“ _David_ ,” he says, angry. “Let go of him.” He grabs David’s arm and yanks him backward, and David lets go of Cook, if just to—make it easier.

He’s sort of still in shock, he thinks, and stares up at Cook with wide eyes—as wide as they can go, probably, and his mouth is slack. 

Cook puts his hands up and takes a step back, “Woah, I didn’t do anything.”

Jeff moves his face from David’s to Cook’s, and David finally wakes up enough to says, “Dad—I just—it’s Cook.”

“What?” his dad says, and Cook furrows his eyebrows, and almost looks like he’s about to repeat the question.

David breathes, and looks at Cook, looks at his messy hair and double chin and holey t-shirt and thinks  _my boyfriend, he’s my boyfriend! Please, please, why is he looking at me like he doesn’t know me, why is—_    
Instead, he says, “It’s David Cook.”

He adds, after a second, “I have, um, like every song you’ve ever done on my iPod. Um—Silver is my favorite, but the Truth is—the Truth is really good too, especially—“ and he can’t help it, when he opens his mouth and the sound just pours out, because he has the lyrics memorized by heart, on his heart, maybe, even, “ _your laugh intoxicating, one touch and I'm negating everything around_ , probably, um—oh my Gosh, I just sang your own song at you, didn’t I?”

Cook looks—he looks surprised, and opens his mouth like he’s going to say something before Michael whistles and says, “Dave, man, you have a fan.”

David flushes again, and thinks—is that what he is now? A fan? One of those crazy stalker ones, even probably,  _Gosh_.

“I’m so sorry,” his Dad says, suddenly, clapping a hand to his forehead, like he’s exasperated with David or something—well, he probably  _is_ , he probably thinks David just like, ran and hugged a total  _stranger_. (David would be pretty exasperated too, he thinks, honestly.)

“No,” Cook says, quickly. “It’s fine—kind of awesome, actually.”

David hasn’t really looked away from Cook the whole time, but he’s shaking a little, now, because Cook is looking at him, and he’s smiling, like-- _smiling_. He’s smiling at David, again. Like always, like every morning, when they wake up and Cook will slide his cold toes up David’s ankle David will laugh and push him away before getting up, and making coffee or cereal or whatever, depending on what they had to do that day. 

It’s weird, the moments he remembers—the things that remind him of other things. 

He can’t stop smiling, and he knows it must look goofy as heck, but he doesn’t even care, it’s  _Cook_.

“So you, uh,” Cook says, rubbing at the back of his neck, kind of shyly, almost, which is—weird. “You’ve got the Truth memorized, huh? That’s kinda’ crazy.”

“I have everything on Analog Heart memorized,” David says, before he can send it through the brain filter thing. (Actually, he thinks he might not have one of those? Or if he did, it just broke, or something, because he’s not filtering  _anything_.) “I just really like the Truth because of the concept? Like  _if you want to know the truth, you make or break my day_. I mean—does that make sense? It’s just, with the um, melody, and—and when you sing, on the bridge? Your voice is—um—“

Cue the flushing again, oh, man, he forgot how much just  _looking_  at Cook could make him just—turn all, red and embarrassed and, whatever. He flings an arm out, demonstrating his lack of words, before saying, weakly, “It’s really—different.”

“David,” his dad says, suddenly, face unreadable and grabbing him by the shoulder. “I think we should go now. I’m sure Mr. Cook needs to practice.”

Michael is grinning, and Cook says, “Wait, your name is David?”

“Oh,” David says, and for some reason, his heart feels like it weighs an extra hundred pounds all the sudden, and it drops to the bottom of his stomach, and he feels sick. “Yeah. David Archuleta.”

“Awesome,” Cook says, smiling nicely. Like a smile he’d give a  _fan_. David knows—he’s  _seen_  those smiles, and he knows the difference. Oh, what did he just  _do_? “See you around, David.”

David watches Cook walk away, towards the backstage, Michael in tow, waving and saying, “I’m Michael, by the way. From the sound of those pipes, we’ll definitely see you around. Well, if we both make it through, anyway—“

“Yeah,” his dad says, for him, because David can’t really make himself talk anymore. He feels exhausted, all the sudden, and more than a little like he might need to throw up when they get back to the hotel room.

 

 

“Hey, David!” Ramiele yells, running up to him a few hours later. His dad had fallen asleep after sitting him down, and awkwardly trying to start a conversation with, “David, I know I haven’t really explained this to you—“ and David finishing it before it started, “Um, can we please not have this conversation in the middle of Hollywood Week?” (It had worked. Temporarily, anyway.) David had left the room quietly, cellphone in pocket in case his dad woke up before he got back.

Ramiele had sat next to him in the audience earlier, with Admanda on the other side. He hadn’t seen them in so long that he ended up dragging them into conversation. David thinks if season seven had had a group round, he would have been pretty safe, with Ramiele and Amanda right off the bat.

“Hi!” he says, excited to see her again. He hasn’t really seen Brooke or Carly yet, or Jason or anyone—and he saw Syesha, for a second, but she can’t actually, um—talk? Right now, so he didn’t really go up and say hi, or anything. 

“Do you want to eat dinner with us?” Ramiele says, quickly, and before David can say yes, she’s leading him into the conference room—also known as the temporary cafeteria area. 

Amanda is standing nearby, filling a plate with French fries and a hamburger, and David grabs one right behind her, saying, “Hi!” again, Ramiele with him. 

“Hey kid,” Amanda says, grinning. “We were wondering if you were joining us. Gotta’ stick together!”

Ramiele is balancing her salad plate and her glass of sprite carefully when they finally turn around, looking for a table to sit at. David says, “That’s kind of a—“ when he hears Michael yelling from behind him and he turns around.

“David,” Michael is yelling, waving, from a table where him and Cook and—David thinks that’s Luke, and the other Jason—are sitting. “Come sit here,” Michael calls, and David feels his heart do a little thump—like, really? Because Luke is next to Cook on one side, but the other side is open, and David could—

Johns points to the chair, like, “Look, there’s a chair open, right here!” and Cook hits him, laughing. 

“Do you want to—um—“ David starts, but Ramiele is already walking in that direction, and Amanda is following.

“Uh, yeah, we’re being invited over,” Ramiele says, like it’s the obvious choice.

David nods, and looks at Cook the entire walk over, even though Cook isn’t looking back. He looks up when David puts his plate down though, next to him, and says, “Hey, David. Man, that’s weird.”

“Archie,” David says. “You can, um—call me Archie.”

Cook smiles again, genuinely. “Cool. Uh, I guess—you were just calling me Cook earlier right? That’ll work for me.”

Ramiele puts her salad down first, and is working on putting down her glass when Amanda grabs her shoulder, laughing about something somebody had apparently said (while Archie was staring at Cook, probably, because he didn’t hear anything that funny), startling her from behind. The glass in her hand slips out of her grip before she can tighten it, and it barely misses the table, dropping instead to the hard floor where it smashes into hundreds of sharp, nearly-transparent shards, mixing with the clear liquid sprite that had still been in it. 

“Jesus!” Michael says, sounding muted as he scoots his chair back fast in an attempt to avoid the shards flying across the floor.

“Archie?” is the sound David hears, along with the tug at his shoulder—painful and sharp and  _piercing_ , except that doesn’t even make sense, the glass didn’t hit him, didn’t  _touch_  him so it can’t actually hurt, but he feels all—almost stinging, but  _worse_ , like—like hundreds sharp pinpricks driving at him—and he turns away from the broken glass to look up into Cook’s concerned face with wide eyes before the feeling is gone altogether.

“Sorry,” Amanda is saying amidst the laughter that hasn’t stopped yet, from her and Luke and Ramiele now, even, and asks, “Is everyone okay?”

“Yeah,” David says, taking a deep breath.

 

 

David feels shaky when he goes to bed that night, crawling under the warm comforter the hotel had provided. His dad is breathing heavy on the other side of the room, and it’s a little comforting just knowing he’s not alone. He doesn’t know  _why_  he’s so—scared, all the sudden. His nerves must be getting the best of him because of Cook. 

Cook. Cook and his—his stupid smile, and his awful voice, and the horrible way his eyes will like, sparkle, when he’s laughing, and—ugh, it’s  _Cook_ , and he’s here, somewhere, like—in the same hotel! Why is David sleeping in the same room as his dad when he could be curled up with Cook, all skin against skin, hot under the blankets, and comfortable,  _so_  comfortable?

Why is he sleeping alone when Cook is out there at all?

He makes an annoyed noise into his pillow and tries to fall asleep, considering the rest of the auditions are tomorrow, and he’s going to sing  _Heaven_ , and Cook will actually him sing that one. Which is actually more exciting than anything else. 

“Go to sleep, Archie,” he mumbles to himself, and imagines that it’s Cook, talking grumbly into his shoulder when David comes home late from the studio and can’t sleep right away, too wound up, and ends up tossing and turning under the sheets until Cook wakes up and kisses him, and talks to him, and rubs a thumb slowly along his hipbone, content, until he finally closes his eyes and his breathing falls even.

 

 

He wakes up slowly, a piano playing in what feels like his dreams, somehow, slow and soft and gentle. It keeps playing as he walks to the bathroom, through his shower, and he sings under his breath, with his eyes closed as the water sprays against him.  _Be still my soul, the Lord is on thy side._

The music is still playing in his head as he pulls on his jeans and tucks in his shirt, and ties the shoelaces on his sneakers. It fades, a little, when he goes downstairs and the loud noises of the other contestants take over, but it’s a slow, gentle thrum in the back of his head until Ryan gives him the mic and says, “Good luck, David.”

Everyone in the audience looks at him when he walks out, and he can see where Cook is, near the back, almost automatically. Michael is there too, and Brooke is near the front with Kristy. David takes a deep breath, fighting back the deep urge to sit down and close his eyes and pray.

“ _Oh, thinkin' about all our younger years,_ ” he starts, and inevitably thinks about him and Cook, when they were younger, and on American Idol, and on the tour, and whenever they could steal time just—be together, and hang out, even when they were just  _friends_. It wasn’t exactly like the song—but then again, it kind of was, really, somehow.“  _There was only you and me, we were young and wild and free. Now nothin' can take you away from me, we've been down that road before. But that's over now, you keep me comin' back for more. Baby, you're all that I want, when you're lyin' here in my arms, I'm findin' it hard to believe, we're in heaven._ ”

He looks at Cook, and almost falters on the words, because Cook is rubbing at his left eye, like he’s trying not to  _cry_  or something, and it almost make him want to laugh. Cook kind of was a crybaby, actually—he cried more David, anyway, and he was eight years older than him! But that’s one of the reasons David fell in love with him, ultimately. Cook just—feels, and doesn’t hide any of it.

It’s always out there, all of it, for the whole world to see.

 

 

“Archie!” Cook yells, and fights his way through a group of people to get to David. David jerks back from his dad and says, “Be right back!” and ducks under a few people, trying to get through to Cook.

When he does, Cook stops, right in front of him, and they kind of awkwardly just stand, for a minute, while people run around them.

“Hi,” David says, finally. “You, um—you called?”

“Yeah,” Cook agrees. “I saw you sing, uh, Heaven. Jesus Christ, Archie, man, that was beautiful.” He runs a hand through his hair, like he feels awkward saying that, but David feels like maybe the sun just moved, somehow, so that it was shining on him a little more, because he feels warm and bright and  _happy_ , and it’s amazing and it’s because of Cook.

“Thanks,” David says, back, smiling. “I—It’s one of my favorites, you know?”

“Yeah, uh, I know how it goes. But that was—that was something special, anyway,” Cook says, and stands their awkwardly for another moment while the heated flush on David’s neck continues to rise. 

“Can we—“ David starts to ask, “I mean, could we—hang out? Sometime?” He thinks his heart is beating as rapidly as whoever is pounding on the drums inside the auditorium, while he waits for an answer. 

Cook grins, and says, “Yeah. I mean, if it’s cool with your old man.”

David glances back at his dad, who’s looking at him over a few people’s heads, looking less than impressed. He turns back to Cook. “Definitely.”

His dad ends up dragging him away though, and Cook goes to—well, probably to practice, he doesn’t sing until later on, David thinks? He’ll have to 

David meets Brooke later that day too, and they hit it off pretty quick—like they did the first time around, although faster, maybe, because David already knows her. She, uh, introduces him to Kristy and Carly, and they all hang out together in the bottom room, for a little while, which they didn’t do the first time around, actually, but David doesn’t even care if that’s weird, it’s Brooke and Kristy and Carly! (And David’s dad is like, perfectly okay with it, probably because they’re girls? They’re going to end up having that conversation a lot earlier, David thinks, frustrated. When he was twenty, it was—his dad didn’t really have a choice but to accept it. David was an adult, and didn’t live with him anymore or anything. But at sixteen—at sixteen, his dad still has a pretty big say in his life, basically, or at least, he thinks he does? And David wants him to, on some things, just not—things like this.)

Carly hasn’t sung yet, so she practices a little with them, and David tells her she’s amazing and she’ll  _definitely_  make it through, and has a moment where he kind, of, um, flails, or something, because is he allowed to tell people the future? It’s not like getting thrown in the past came with a  _rulebook_ , but like, in every movie ever, you don’t tell people that.

They all shuffle in the auditorium a little while before Carly’s turn—because it’ll be Cook’s turn first, and David has to see it, and he explains, kind of awkwardly, “Um, my—friend? Cook? Um, David Cook, he’s really good and he’s singing, like, soon? So can we—“ and Brooke and Kristy are all for it, so. 

They’re technically supposed to sit in an assigned order, but they don’t, and David doesn’t think anyone actually cares, because they don’t even try to stop them. His feet are bouncing, kind of, on the floor, and Kristy laughs at him and nudges his foot with hers. Carly went on backstage, getting ready for her turn.

Someone David doesn’t remember sings first, and then someone else singing Heaven—um, not that, er, well, though?—goes on, and then—and then Cook comes out, sans guitar, like the first time, and sings  _I’ll be your cryin’ shoulder_  and David has to blink back the effort not to cry himself. He wants to run up and kiss him, he realizes, and has to tighten his hand around the arm of the seat he’s sitting in to stop himself. 

 

 

“David,” his dad starts, that night when they’re going to bed. It’s the Top 24 selection tomorrow—David’ probably not as nervous as he should be, but he can’t help the little butterflies flying around in his stomach. It’s just—he’s proved that things can change already, right? If he does things differently? What if he messed something up somehow and he doesn’t make it through?

“David,” his dad says again, and sits down next to David on his bed, making it sink in a little. David looks up warily.

“David, we need to talk about this. It’s—it’s alright to like someone, you know, to look up to them and admire them, the way you seem to with David Cook.”

“Yeah?” David says, unsure how to handle this. His dad had never tried to really talk about this with him until after he’d come out, holding Cook’s hand the entire time, and then—then they’d just yelled back and forth a lot, and then sort of… ignored it, more or less.

“But you need to realize where admiration changes into—into—“ 

His dad gets stuck on the words, and David says, “Attraction?”

His dad stares at him, frowning. “Yes.”

David shrugs, and crosses his arms—as small a defense mechanism as he can make, at this point. “I like Cook, Dad. I’m not—“

“You don’t know him, David,” his dad interjects, putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. “He’s—he’s a man, for starters, and he’s much older than you. He’s certainly not someone who follows the faith religiously—“

“What does that matter?” David says, jerking back. “Mom wasn’t either, when you met her, and it’s not like you’re a—“ He stops talking and gets up from the bed. “I need to brush my teeth,” he says. “Maybe—if it makes you feel any better, maybe this is just one of those teenage rebellion things.”

And in the way of teenage rebellion, it sort of feels that way, except for how David knows that it’s not even close.

 

 

Everyone gets up at like seven in the morning to collect downstairs and find out who’s making it into the top twenty-four—and onto the actual show, when they come back in late January. David already knows everyone who makes it through, though, and finds himself trying to avoid those who he knows  _aren’t_  making it. He just—he feels like he’s mean, or something, letting them sit and fret when he knows they’re not going to get through.

Cook is sitting at a table with Michael and Luke and the other Jason, again, but there’s, um, there’s a girl there too, when David walks in the room, and she’s like—right next to him, like, in his space? 

David kind of wants to go wrap his arms around Cook and kiss him hard on the mouth and make her, like,  _back up_ —but he catches himself three steps in. It’s not like he’d do that even if he and Cook were, um, dating, because—because oh my Gosh, he’s not, like, possessive, or anything, it’s just—this Cook doesn’t realize he’s already taken, gosh darn it, and he’s flirting  _back_  and David wants to hit him as much as he wants to kiss him. 

Not that Cook knows he’s not allowed to flirt with girls, or um, anything, which sucks, kind of a lot. 

David slides down at a table that’s empty still, and stares at the blueberry muffin he’d put on his paper plate for breakfast, until Brooke sits down across from him and Kristy too, and then Amanda wanders over and Ramiele and Carly and even Alexandria comes over and says, “ _David_?” and his table is filled with girls in no time, which helps, a little, with his attempts not to look over at Cook’s table. He just keeps hoping he’ll catch Cook looking at his.

“David,” Amanda says, pointing her fork up with a piece of toast on it, still. “You keep looking at that table—“

“It’s because David Cook is over there,” Kristy adds, before David can protest. “The one with the weird hair. No offense, David, we know how much you like him.” She says it in like, this _voice_ , like she’s teasing him, and David wants to crawl under a rock or something, because they think he has  _a crush on Cook_.

Well, he sort of does. But that’s not the point!

Brooke laughs, and says, “Aw, guys, he’s blushing, we shouldn’t—“

“Oh!” Carly interrupts, looking over at Cook’s table curiously. “I didn’t get to see him the other day! Wait, the one with the—with the pink vest? David, why do you like  _him_?“

“You guys are awful,” David mumbles, and sinks down in his chair as they all start laughing again, and they keep looking at Cook like, so much that Cook’s table notices, and Johns laughs loud enough that David can hear it all the way across the room, and even though he’s sure Cook is looking  _now_ , he refuses to look back on principle.

 

 

The waiting is pretty awful too, actually, once they’re all sent into the small sitting room, and are told the judges will call them up and tell them if they made it or if they’re going home for good. It’s the same process as last time, David thinks, and he wonders if he’ll get the same speech or a different one. Or maybe just an edited one?

The first couple of people who go in the room come out upset, or crying, and David feels horrible, knowing they’re going in without any chance of coming out happy. But then it’s Carly’s turn, and he grins and says, “You’ll be through!” and she gives him a look, like, her eyebrow playfully raised really high.

She almost looks like she’s about to start crying, and David says, “I promise.”

She breathes, and laughs a little. “Okay, I’m trusting you, David!”

She goes up the elevator, and Brooke holds Kristy’s hand until she comes back down, crying but with her thumb pointed up. Everybody hugs her—literally everyone, even David, and she sits back down just to breathe without collapsing. 

“David,” Ramiele says, touching his shoulder. “Your guy’s going up.”

David’s stomach is a little bit in knots—he knows Cook makes it through. 

He’s still terrified though, like—no, Cook has to make it through, just like the first time, just like Carly. His leg shakes the entire time Cook is upstairs, he can’t stop it, like some sort of nervous tick. Brooke puts out a hand, and weirdly, he takes it. It’s just—comforting, sort of, even though he says, “He’ll be fine,” and laughs, a little. 

He will. David knows that already. And then—and then he  _is_ , and he walks out looking exhausted and relieved and hugs his sister, and Ryan is all, “Congratulations!” before Amanda stands up and walks through—asking David quickly, jokingly, “Do you think I’ll make it?” before she does.

Cook is talking to Michael, about—about being relieved, probably, that it’s over, and  _man, Michael, you’ll be fine_. He barely realizes Amanda is back, safe, until Carly says, “What about him? Do you think—“

David doesn’t really remember the guy going up in the elevator right now, and he shrugs, which Carly takes as a no. “Oh,” she says, and makes a sad face. But then he comes out, shaking his head, and—almost crying, David thinks, and Carly says, “Okay, Archie’s psychic.”

Which isn’t true  _at all_ , he’s just done this all, already.

He’s trying to figure out a good excuse to go over and talk to Cook when it’s suddenly his turn, and Kristy pushes him out of his chair, making him stumble his way into a standing position because he hadn’t been paying attention when Ryan said, “David?” 

“Oh,” he says, and all the girls are giving him a bunch of thumb up’s, and he turns to see Cook looking at him too, grinning. “Good luck, Archie!” Cook yells, and Amanda yells too, and then like, everyone is cheering him on as he goes into the room to take up the elevator, and his heart is clanging around in his chest because  _Cook_  just—he could care less about the judges, really.

He’s thinking of Cook through the whole thing—even as Simon says he’s ‘remarkably mature for your age’, and Randy says, ‘hot dawg’, or whatever, David still doesn’t know what that  _means_ , and Paula says, “You’re through!” He laughs, and says  _thank you thank you_  before taking a deep breath in the elevator and going back down.

“Well, you look happy—“ Ryan says, and David says, “Yeah,” timidly, and Brooke and Kristy and Amanda are all hugging him, like, at the  _same time_ , and it’s great, he just wants to make sure Cook is still—Cook is still there. And he has to leave the room to find out, because once you find out your results they kind of, like, kick you out to wait with all of the family members? And he is, of course he is, he wants to make sure Michael makes it through before he leaves, and Idol is going to make them do that weird, like, dance, thing, ugh, but the point is, Cook is still  _there_.

When he walks out, he should probably hug his dad first, but—well, Cook is closer? And he’s supposed to be all, overwhelmed, or whatever, and he is, even, sort of, because this is the first step and, he says, “Cook!” when he sees him.

“Archie, hey,” Cook says, “did you make it?”

David grabs Cook around the waist as an answer, and Cook hugs him back, for a second, before Carly barrels into them and goes, “Archie, you made it!” and hugs him too.

“Yeah,” David says, mumbling, and then, “Can I have your phone numbers?” 

It’s a little bit of a trick, asking for Carly’s  _and_  Cook’s at the same time, because he knows Carly will say yes, and Cook will kind of have to, in response. But, whatever, David can be sneaky, if it’s for a good cause, and this is totally a good cause, he can’t  _not_  talk to Cook for another  _two month_.

“Of course!” Carly says, like he thought, and Cook hesitates but pulls his cellphone out too, and they both plug in Archie’s phone number. Carly texts him, ‘:)!’ and Cook’s just says, ‘hey’.

He finally gives his dad a hug after that, but he can’t help it when he tries to stick close to Cook (they’re leaving after this), and it’s not like it’s  _hard_ , because—because it’s not. He knows Cook, knows him like he doesn’t know anyone else.

“Did—“ David starts, and then rolls his eyes, because this is seriously how he’s going to do this? “Did you hear about that new pirate movie?”

Cook looks at him, “Uh, no, you mean—“

“It’s rated argh!” David says, practically standing on his tiptoes and does the weird, um, arm, gesture, thing, that Cook would do when telling this joke, quickly, so that Cook can’t ruin it by talking about Pirates of the Caribbean, or whatever pirate movie was in theaters back then/right now/whatever, he never was good with time zones, and he can’t even remember anyway.

Cook stares at him for a second, before it catches up to him, and he snorts, and he covers his mouth with his palm, starting laughing for real. “Oh, fuck, are you serious? That’s  _awesome_ ,” he says, and then—and then they’re laughing and telling stupid jokes (well, mostly Cook is, because David is really bad at telling jokes, as Cook realizes, um, quickly), and talking about Andrew’s bad jokes (and David really knows, but, well), and Daniel is pretty bad at jokes too, so David laughs about that. Michael joins in when he comes out, safe, until they all stop and be quiet when someone—Josiah? David thinks was his name—doesn’t make it through to the top twenty-four. 

Michael even goes over with Carly and they hug him, and try to make him feel a bit better, but—

You can’t really feel better, after something like that. Not for a while, at least.

He gets everyone’s phone numbers—or, well, most of them? He has Michael’s, and Brooke’s, and Kristy’s, and Ramiele’s and Amanda’s, and even Alexandria’s? Plus Cook and Carly—before Ryan comes back out and is like, “And now we’re doing something special for the viewers at home.” Which is his sneaky way of guiding them into the room with the American Idol backdrop where they get to, like, dance weirdly for ten seconds for  _the entire country_  to see, Gosh darn it.

At least he’s cheerful enough that he doesn’t really mind, um, that much.

And Cook gives him another hug goodbye, so—so it’s good. 

(“It was good to meet you, Archie,” Cook said, near David’s ear, all hot and warm and making David shiver, and he mumbled back, into Cook’s collar, “Yeah.” He hadn’t actually wanted to let go.)

 

 

 

David manages to avoid texting Cook five times a day. For, um, about a day, anyway, because he just—he texted  _There’s snow everywhere, and we’re stuck in the airport, haha._  because he was bored, and the plane had been delayed for, um, an hour, or something, to clear the runway (in Salt Lake City, not L.A., obviously), and Cook’s phone number was kind of taunting him, now that he could actually text it and it would  _work_.

Except Cook texted him back, a really horrible picture of an old man sleeping next to him on the plane that he was on, and then they were like, taking pictures of weird things and making the other guess what they were and they’d actually done that before, when they were both on tours, and couldn’t see each other every day? 

It was—it was kind of amazing, except how they never ended with  _Goodnight David, I love you._

And he really wanted them to.

 

 

He texts Cook on the twentieth before he thinks about it,  _happy bday! and to neal too!_

He gets back, an hour later,  _… thanks._  and David realizes Cook never told him his birthday, or really talked about Neal, let alone his birthday and—oh gosh, Cook was going to end up thinking David really  _was_  a creepy stalker fan.

Cook doesn’t text him anything about his birthday on the twenty-eighth, but then, he doesn’t know its David’s birthday. (He eats cake with his family and opens presents, and then feigns a headache and goes to bed early, and stares at his phone for long enough that he falls asleep wondering how to text Cook in a non-weird way that also informs him he’s twenty-four today. Or—seventeen, anyway.)

 

 

David gets off the plane in L.A., and carries his suitcase to the car that’s picking them up as fast as he can. It’s been like two months since he’s actually  _touched_  Cook, okay, he needs to see him now, or as soon as possible, or  _something_. Even though his parents had sat him down and explained that being attracted to another man isn’t conducive to a healthy lifestyle, or whatever, David has been through all of that, and he doesn’t really need to go through it again. He thinks his parents got his skepticism on the whole subject when they were talking about it, and it’s one of those kind of—touchy? subjects? in the church right now, so they probably weren’t wanting to push too hard on it. (And they think it’s more of  _he’s such a good singer_  sort of thing, rather than a  _I was sort of thinking about marrying him_  sort of thing.)

But the point is—he’s in L.A., for American Idol, and so is David Cook, somewhere.

He pulls at his phone and texts him,  _we’re here!_  and waits for Cook to text back,  _I’m jealous, the kid sleeping next to me is starting to drool._

 

 

He’s rooming with Chikezie, again. He likes Chikezie, actually, he’s really nice and clean and funny? But he hasn’t actually talked to him in, um, years, almost, so it’s kind of weird. He unpacks his stuff and waits around for Cook, though, and lies back on his bed with  _Luna Despierta_  playing through his headphones. It figures he’d end up falling asleep to it.

There’s a tugging at his shoulder when he wakes up, and blinks open his eyes to see Cook, smiling softly, and Chikezie standing a few feet behind him. “Hey, Arch,” Cook says, pulling back his hand from David’s shoulder (and why couldn’t he just leave it there, David thinks for a second before his brain catches up with him). “You text me my whole flight, and then I get here and you’re sleeping like a rock.”

“Oh,” David says, and then failingly tries to sit up, saying, “Oh my Gosh, I’m sorry!”

And then he jumps up and grabs onto Cook, wrapping his arms around his neck by standing on his tiptoes, because he wants to be as close as he can. Cook hugs him back easily enough, but pulls back sooner than David really appreciates. David lets him go though, because—because he’s not a crazy person, he’s just—someone who hasn’t seen Cook in a long time. (A really, really, really long time.)

“Come on,” Cook says, and he’s talking to Chikezie. “The producers want to talk to us or something, I said I’d come get Sleeping Beauty here, but you probably need to get down there too.”

“Yeah,” Chikezie says, dropping his clothes from where he was putting them in the drawers on his side of the room. “I’m going.”

“And you?” Cook says, crossing his arms all like, in charge. “Ready for this, David Archuleta?”

It’s so  _easy_ , David thinks, because he and Cook never talked at Idol, really—not until it went from twenty-four to twelve, anyway, at least, and—he’s glad he got Cook’s phone number back at Hollywood Week. They’d been texting for so long now, it’s—it’s natural, for Cook to frown at him with his fake serious face and use his whole name like, whatever, it was  _important_.

This is way better than waiting a month to get familiar with him enough to so much as say, “ _Oh, um—wow, that was really good—how long have you actually played, um, guitar?_ ”

“Yes!” David says, and they walk down to the elevator together, Cook telling him a (really bad, and David kind of, maybe, trips, because of how much affection surges through him when Cook says it) new joke he learned on the way down. (David maybe laughs the whole time, and Cook maybe laughs at him because he’s laughing so hard, and then David keeps laughing because Cook is like, bent over laughing, and it’s a whole cycle of laughing that the rest of the contestants are privy too when the elevator doors open on the lobby and they’re all, like, standing there, and neither David nor Cook can actually stop laughing  _for no reason at all_. It’s maybe a little embarrassing, but David definitely doesn’t care.)

 

 

The practice room is decked out with a piano, and guitars, and all sorts of cool stuff that normal hotels totally don’t have, and David walks in on Cook playing the guitar the third day they’re there. He sits down when Cook smiles at him but doesn’t stop playing, and just listens for a little while, until Cook finishes the song.

“Sorry,” Cook says, putting the guitar down. “Are you supposed to practicing in here or something?”

“No,” David says. “I just heard you playing.”

“Huh,” Cook says, looking at him curiously. “You play the piano, right?”

“Yeah.” David gets up, and walks over to sit next to Cook, close enough that their legs touch, and he reaches for the guitar in Cook’s hand. He stops right before he touches it, because he remembers—he doesn’t actually have permission to do that, with this Cook. “I can play a little guitar too though?”

“By all means,” Cook says, handing over the guitar, the bold AC sliding under his fingers as he does so, and he scoots back a bit, so that their legs aren’t touching anymore.

David takes the pick that Cook hands him, and slides the strap around his back, so the guitar will stay in place, and he thinks for a second before strumming out a chord, and starting to play  _I’m Yours_. “ _Well you done, done me, and you bet I felt it. I tried to be chill but you’re so hot that I melted. I fell right through the cracks, and now I’m trying to get back. Before the cool done run out, I’ll be giving it my bestest. Nothing’s going to stop me but divine intervention. I reckon it’s again my turn to win some or learn some, I won’t hesitate no more, no more. It cannot wait, I’m yours._ ”

Cook is staring at him, when David looks up—he has this habit of watching his hands as he plays, because he’s always afraid he’ll mess up? And he’s not very good—he knows he did mess up, like four times, but Cook is really nice when he’s teaching David how to play, and David gets distracted by the lyrics, and he always ends up singing more than playing, really. 

“Archie,” Cook says, slowly. “You’re—that was really good.”

David ducks his head and gives the guitar back, but he can’t stop smiling.

 

 

Okay, David knows he makes mistakes all the time, but he can usually, um, whatever, hide them, because he rambles a lot and nobody pays attention to everything he says, but when Cook gets off the phone with his mom, a kind of quiet conversation suddenly being made in the corner of the lobby, and he has a frown on his face, it’s just—David pretty much knows what it’s about, and his brain-to-mouth filter doesn’t exist around Cook? so he just—blurts it out.

“How’s Adam?”

But he realizes, two second after asking, that it was the wrong thing to ask, probably, because Cook’s eyes go all guarded and he asks back, “Archie, how the hell do you know my brother’s name?”

He flinches, and looks at Cook, and can’t even—

“Don’t yell at him,” Carly says, quickly, putting a hand on his shoulder as if to protect him or something, the kid from the angry guy.

“Whatever,” Cook says, waving it off, and he goes to sit down next to Michael, his plate still half full at the table there. 

“You okay, sweetie?” Carly asks, and David takes a step back.

“Yeah, I just—stuck my nose where it didn’t belong.” He doesn’t say,  _but he used to tell me things like that without me asking._

 

 

When four of their new friends go home, Cook says, “About the other day—“

David shakes his head and finishes, “It’s okay.”

 

 

Carly sits down on the red couch next to David, with, like—he doesn’t know,  _things_ , in her hair, maybe she’s trying to curl it? Or something? His mom does that, sometimes, and Claudia tried it once but it didn’t really work out that, um, well. 

“So, Archie,” she says, looking serious. “Who’s going home this week?” 

He can’t help it when he looks at Danny, because it’s just instinctive, or whatever, and even though he says, “I don’t—“ Carly says, “Oh, no!” like it’s a done deal or something. (Well, it  _is_ , but Carly doesn’t know that.)

“I don’t know! I just don’t think anyone is going home!” And isn’t it sad that he’s lying, like, majorly, just by  _being_  there, but can’t manage to lie to Carly about this?

“Mm, whatever, Archuleta,” she says, and Cook says, “Whatever what?” from behind David, like he’s just walking by and heard part of the conversation.

“David is psychic, you know,” Carly says. She chirps it, almost, David thinks, and crosses his arms while he says, “I’m really  _not_ —“

“Oh,” Cook says, grinning. “I figured that out weeks ago.”

 

 

 

David hums the second verse of of  _Light On_  while he looks for a napkin, and jumps nearly a foot in the air when a hand drops onto his shoulder and Cook says, "How do you know—"

"Oh my Gosh, Cook!" David yells, and the brownie he's chewing threatens to spill out of his mouth until he covers it with both his hands, eyes big, and Cook stops whatever he was saying to choke out laughter.

"Dude, were you just—I've heard of talking while you eat, but you were  _singing_? Oh man, Archie." He's like, cracking up, and David is desperately trying to swallow what's in his mouth even though he's laughing too, sort of, and he grabs Cook's arm for balance.

"I didn't know you were in here," he says, finally, when he's choked down the whole brownie.

Cook's eyes are wet, and he wipes them, grinning. "I should sneak up on you more often if this is what happens." 

(David's brain kind of automatically thinks of what else happens when Cook decides to sneak up on him, alone at home, and he can sneak up by putting his hands on David’s hips, and usually they’re really cold against his skin, at first, until they warm up after, and wow, not a good place to go, right now, thanks brain!) 

He flushes, and moves his fingers, realizing suddenly that he’s touching Cook. Cook realizes it too, he thinks, because they both stop laughing, stop talking, stop moving, and David is terrified to shift at all, or—“Cook?” he asks, softly, and Cook jerks backwards, turning around before David can see him do anything.

“Shit,” Cook says, then laughs, sort of. “Man, I forgot I was supposed to call my sister today, there’s this thing with the baby and—I’ll see you tonight, alright?”

David goes to his room and falls down on the bed, and screams into his pillow, just to see if it’ll help  _at all_.

 

 

Cook totally has this thing where he has to be the most annoying person ever when he has things like bubble liquid, or water balloons, or especially cameras. And one of the camera guys totally let him borrow their camera, and David is currently hiding in-between two vending machines because he’s been chasing him around with it since they found out what songs they’re singing this week. 

The first couple of times it wasn’t as annoying, but then Cook started talking about, like,  _collages_  and  _scrapbooks_  and he took a picture of David when he was changing into that costume for the Ford Commercial, and—David doesn’t appreciate everything about Cook, anyway.

He almost listens just out of spite when his Dad tries to give him another talk about spending so much time with Cook. And it’s about a week after that, when David’s trying to remember all the lyrics to  _You’re the Voice_ , when Kristy knocks on his hotel room door and says, “Man, your dad has issues.”

“What?” David asks, confused and standing up, leaving the sheet of music paper on his bed. 

“He’s chewing Dave out for being a bad influence on you. I don’t know, I think you’re a good influence on  _him_ , but, whatever you—David, don’t—“

David runs down the stairs to the lobby, but by the time he gets there, his dad is gone and Cook is just lying on the couch, and Michael is laughing at him. Michael looks up at David and cracks up again, and David sighs before walking over to apologize, his dad might just be a  _little_  overprotective.

Maybe.

(Definitely.)

 

 

 

When David goes on stage, the big stage, ready to sing  _Smokey Mountain Memories_ , he’s calm. He thought he was calm—he’s done it before, and he wasn’t that bad? But for some reason—for some reason the lights, on the ceiling of the auditorium—they shine really brightly, and it feels like they’re moving, fast, like they’re going  _hit him_. 

“David?” he hears, suddenly, and Ryan is standing next to him on the stage, touching his shoulder, and the audience is quiet and whispering—confused. “Are you okay?”

“I—“ 

Is he okay? He doesn’t—he feels like—

He looks at the lights again. They’re just—ordinary lights, nailed into the ceiling.

“I’m fine,” he says, and smiles. “Just can’t believe how many people are actually  _here_.”

 

 

“Archie—“ Cook says, sitting down on the end of his bed, because David ran into Cook and Michael’s room after their performances, after they drove back to the hotel, Brooke with her arm wrapped around him the whole time. He’d frozen on stage, is what had happened. He’d  _frozen_. 

They just didn’t know why.

Neither did David, but he knew it wasn’t nerves, at least.

Michael had said, “I’m—going to get a snack,” the second David and walked in, falling flat on his face on Cook’s bed.

“Archie, come on,” Cook says again, nudging David’s foot. “You came back from it. That song was amazing, man. You killed it.”

David pushes up on his elbows and then slides so that he’s sitting with his back against the headboard of the bed. “That’s not—I didn’t freeze because I was nervous, or whatever, Cook, it’s this _thing_  that keeps happening, and I don’t know what it is but it’s starting to really freak me out! Completely random things will happen and I’ll just—I don’t know, I just freeze up for however long, and then I can’t even remember—“

“David, calm the fuck down,” Cook says, reaching forward and grabbing both his shoulders roughly, pulling him down so that Cook can hug him. “You’re fine, alright? Nothing bad happened, and you’re safe.”

David breathes in Cook’s scent—it smells like oceans, this time, and a little like sweat too, but David actually likes the way Cook smells when he comes home from work, hot and tired and sweaty.

“I’m twenty-three,” he mumbles against Cook’s chest.

Cook laughs. “What?”

“Twenty-four, actually. My birthday was in December. On the twenty-eighth? I wanted to text you.”

“David,” Cook says, his eyebrows furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m from the future,” David says, clearly, and backup’s from Cook’s grip.

He talks about it—about waking up to  _Ghibli_  posters in his room and his little sister being nine and seeing a sixteen-year-old kid in the mirror instead of a twenty-three-year-old, and how he’s already been on American Idol, which is how he knows whose getting voted off and when, and how he knows so much about Cook, and Carly, and Michael, and everyone, actually. 

Cook stops him to ask questions every few minutes, and he’s smiling a little, like he’s thinking  _okay, I’ll just go with it—kid is crazy_ , but David doesn’t even care.

He’s telling Cook the truth, everything—everything except—except that they’re in love.

He can’t explain that.

“Okay,” Cook says, finally. “Okay. Let’s say I half-believe you, in the same way that I half-believe in ghosts. I mean, I can’t prove they don’t exist, I can’t prove that you’re not twenty-three. Why did you instantaneously time travel?”

David falls back onto the bed and groans, “I’ve been saying, I don’t  _know_!”

Cook frowns, before getting up, off the bed, finally. “Alright. Well, either way, I think your Dad’ll kick my ass if you stay in here any longer.”

“Right,” David mumbles, not getting up right away.

“David—“

“I’m going, I’m going.”

“Hey,” Cook says, before David can open the door and walk out. He grabs David’s arm and tugs him back, so that he can hug him again. “It was a big thing, alright? It’s cool to be stressed. Don’t give in to the pressure, alright? You’re too talented for that.”

David smiles and half-laughs, exasperated that Cook is totally treating him like he’s a kid and making David fall more and more in love with him  _anyway_ , and he tightens his hold on Cook’s shirt to make the hug a closer one. Quietly, he says, “Thanks, Cook.”

 

 

Watching Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown perform  _No Air_  just reminds David of when he and Jordin performed it with face paint all over the place. It’s the only happy thought he has on the top eight results night though, and Michael has been wincing all night, because Archie hasn’t been able to look him in the eyes all week.

 

 

After, David lies back down on Cook’s bed, and stares at the ceiling while Cook pushes in a drawer too hard. Michael had packed all his things already—his wife was in town. He was staying in a room with her. 

“How the fuck do you know who’s going home before it happens?” Cook asks, finally.

“I already told you,” David says, clearly. 

Cook sits on the bed, and slides over so that he can lean down and lay next to David, his head on the other pillow. They both stare at the ceiling for a while, breathing even. Archie turns his head a little, and waits until Cook does the same, looking tired.

“I love you,” David says, softly. It’s quiet—but the room is quiet, and there’s no way Cook couldn’t have heard it.

Cook closes his eyes and takes a long breath before moving to sit up, touching David’s arm to signify that he should too. “David,” he starts, “this—thing, your crush, it’s not—“

“I don’t have a crush on you,” David says, blinking hard. He laughs, meanly, and throws his hands up. “I said I’m in  _love_  with you!”

“You don’t even know me!” Cook says, raising his voice to match David’s, but David shakes his head and yells back, “I’ve known you for seven years!” He blinks again, but his eyes are stinging. “I’ve known you for seven years, and I’ve been in love with you for three, and we’ve lived together for two, and we have a dog—his name is Dublin—and we fight over who takes out the trash on Thursday’s, and then we make up, and I’ll make you chocolate pancakes with peanut butter on them because I know you like it even though I think it’s gross, and you’ll bring home Thai take-out every night, even when you’re tired of it, because you know I could eat it for years and still love it. You refuse to go to the same restaurant twice for special occasions, you know that? And you—“ David’s voice breaks. “You taught me how to play the guitar, when my parents got divorced, because you wanted to distract me.”

He tries not to cry, but he is anyway, when he finishes by saying, “That was you.”

 

 

Cook sings  _You’ll Always Be My Baby_  next week, and they haven’t really spoken since the whole—thing. David tries not to listen, because it hurts too much, he thinks, and he isn’t sure if it sounded so sad the first time Cook sang it or not.

“ _You'll always be a part of me, I'm a part of you indefinitely. Girl, don't you know you can't escape me, ooh, darling, cause you'll always be my baby. And we'll linger on, time can't erase a feeling this strong. No way you're never gonna’ shake me, ooh, darling, ‘cause you'll always be my baby._ ”

 

 

Cook comes into David’s room, cracking the door open, first. David looks up, hunching his shoulders from where’s he’s sitting at the table, looking at the words to his Andrew Lloyd Webber song, trying to re-memorize them all when he doesn’t feel like memorizing anything.

“Alright,” Cook says, sitting down. “Alright, first—I’m sorry I’ve been a jerk, I just—however old you think you are—or are—“ he says, hands up, placating, “you  _look_  seventeen. Hell, Archie, you look younger than that. Your dad would literally murder me if I so much as said I liked you back—you know that? Everybody else thinks you’re seventeen. It doesn’t matter how old you think you are.”

He sighs, and runs a hard through his hair. “Maybe—maybe in a year or two. Okay?”

He gets up, and puts a hand on David’s shoulder, his fingertips brushing the skin where the collar of his t-shirt isn’t covering. David says, “Okay,” and thinks  _Wow, so this is how it felt when I said it to him_.

 

 

“… and the penguin  _panged_  it,” Cook says, and then swivels around in his chair, laughing even though not even Jason can figure out what that actually, um, meant. 

“Your jokes are awful,” Syesha says, breaking the odd silence afterwards. 

Cook frowns, but David, Jason and Carly all start to laugh, because at least that  _made sense_.

“It’s kind of true,” David says, smiling. “But sometimes they’re funny too? Or, um—so awful that you have to laugh anyway?”

“You’re so not helping, Archuleta. In fact,” Cook says, standing up and glaring menacingly, “I don’t think I can let you get away with that.”

David freezes up, because he’s heard that  _exact sentence before_  and it  _never_  ends happily. He tries to jump off the couch but Cook grabs him around the stomach and hunkers down, pulling David down with him, pushing his fingers into David’s sides and then rapidly starts to tickle him.

“Oh my Gosh!” David yells, and flings an arm out while trying to grab at Cook’s with his other one, but he just manages to make Cook move positions, so that he’s on top of David, locking him between Cook and the couch itself instead. Carly and Syesha are both laughing, and almost seem like they’re debating on joining or something, and David can’t help it, he’s laughing too, because Cook is  _tickling_  him, and oh—his hands are really cold, where they’re touching his skin, as his t-shirt rides up against the friction from the couch. “Cook, stop,” he says, in-between laughs, even though he’s trying to be serious, and maybe—maybe Cook gets it, because after a second—after a second, he slows down, until he just stops, altogether, and David can’t stop his chest from rising up with every breath he takes, even though he wants to be completely still, because Cook is—

Cook is staring at him, like he’s surprised, like—like maybe he wants to be kissing David, right now.

 

 

He’s in the music room downstairs, across from the lobby, listening to the music for  _Sweet Caroline_ , when Cook walks in, looking frustrated. He spots Archie, and throws up a hand in greeting, before sliding down in a chair. 

“What’s wrong?” David asks, moving over to sit across from Cook.

Cook looks at him, for a moment, before shrugging and saying, “I’m Alive is just coming out a little dry.”

“It’ll be fine,” David says, automatically. “When you use the guitar with it, I mean, it sounds, um, yeah.”

Cook looks at him again, and finally says, “Stop it.”

“Stop—what?” David asks, unsure. 

Cook shakes his head and gets up, out of his chair, and before David even realizes it, is leaning in, balancing by putting his hand on the arm of David’s chair, right next to David’s arm, “Telling me the future.”

He starts to leave—backs up and moves towards the door. David’s hand twitches, and he makes a fist, and stands up.

“Cook,” he says, loud enough that Cook has to hear. Cook turns around, a noise like, “Hm?” falling out of his mouth before David grabs his stupid t-shirt and pulls him down so that he can kiss him. He hasn’t kissed Cook in months—almost half a year, but he still remembers how, and puts one arm up around David’s neck, and just falls into it, into every feeling of being with Cook, of holding him and kissing him and watching tv with him, or listening to his stupid jokes or sitting in bed while he plays unpracticed chords on the guitar, because he dreamt a new song and woke David up to show him.

David makes a  _hmpf_  noise against Cook’s lips, and smiles when Cook pushes back and wraps a hand around David, splaying it against his back, and opens David’s mouth to kiss him deeper, because—because he knows how to kiss David Cook. 

Cook never even had a chance.

 

 

“Alright,” Cook says, pacing in his hotel room while David sits on his bed, criss-cross applesauce, watching Cook pace. “Alright, so, this is crazy. We can’t tell anyone about this, Arch.”

“I know,” David says, eyes widening. “Cook,  _I’ve_  been through this before.”

Cook just groans and turns around.

“ _Cook_ ,” David says, sliding off the bed to reach forward and grab Cook’s arm, pulling him back to the hotel bed. “Stop freaking out?” he asks, and smiles, because Cook always said David’s smiles were, um, distracting, or something? And that’s kind of what he wants right now, because Cook is finally  _getting it_  and David really sort of hasn’t had sex in half a year  _and_  he’s like, seventeen or whatever, and they’re alone in a hotel room, so it’s just, you know, perfect.

He kisses Cook again, and Cook sighs into it, and seems to give up on the pacing because he settles down on the bed and starts to kiss David back. It’s easy—soft, at first, before David pulls back a little and starts to kiss Cook’s chin instead, working his way down to his neck while his hand grips the edge of Cook’s shirt and slides underneath it, aiming for his jeans.

“Archie,” Cook says, heavily. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Mm,” David hums back, against Cook’s throat, and breathes against the spot wet from where he’s been sucking on it. 

“Arch, seriously,” Cook says, even as David starts to pull him over a little, by leaning down, almost lying down, his back against the pillows, and he wants Cook so much it  _hurts_.

The sharp knock at the door does less for respecting their privacy than saying  _someone’s walking in_  and Cook scrambles off of David so fast that he bangs his elbow into the side table. He curses, “ _Shit_ ,” and grabs it and David sits up quickly, and starts to ask, “Is it blee—“

“David,” Cook says, not as a tone of endearment, but as  _shut the hell up_.

David turns around to see who was at the hotel room door, and oh, that’s—that’s something he never had to deal with in the future. And that’s definitely Jeffrey Archuleta standing in the doorway, a keycard held in his hand awkwardly, and a frown on his face that David irrationally thinks means  _you’re grounded forever_.

“Right,” David says, and looks at Cook, “Um, thanks, for—the guitar lessons. I think I’m getting better.”

It’s not a lie. David is sort of a horrible liar, so it’s better to exaggerate the truth, when he has the option. And Cook  _is_  teaching him the guitar, in the future, and he  _is_  getting better. 

“Guitar lessons?” his dad says, disbelieving, and he’s not looking at David, but rather Cook.

“Guitar lessons,” David says, nodding. “Do you want to hear me play?”

His dad pauses, and David is just a little thankful that Cook’s guitar is out of its case, laying on Michael’s old bed, because Cook  _had_  been playing on it earlier. 

“No,” he says, finally. “It’s your time to go into the studio, David.”

David smiles, a little awkwardly, and bites his lip when they leave.

 

 

David is listening to Cook belt out  _Hungry Like the Wolf_  when one of the speakers blow. 

The sound is loud—it’s an angry screeching that sounds like it’s right in David’s ear, and it’s so loud he yells and covers his them with his hands as his head starts to throb and he drops onto the floor, slamming his back into the edge of the sofa when it feels like he’s being thrown to the side of the room, in the same direction that that sound is coming from, angry and  _piercing_  and why isn’t it  _stopping_? It feels like his head is going to explode, it hurts so much—

It stops, right around the time he realizes Cook is holding him around the shoulders, tugging him up off the floor and saying, “David, Jesus fucking Christ—Archie!”

His cheek is wet, and he wipes it off with the back of his hand.

The guys in the room—there’s three of them, guys with the band, because they’re practicing for the show tomorrow night, and Cook had asked David to come sit in, rather than just waiting in the hall—are all staring at him, unsure, nervous looks on their faces. 

“Are you okay?” one of the asks, and David sits down, shaking.

“Yeah,” he says, and doesn’t let go of Cook’s hand. He asks, quieter, so that only Cook can hear, “Why does this keep happening, and why does it keep getting worse?”

“I don’t know,” Cook says, and then: “Maybe you should see a doctor, Arch.”

David tilts his head back, until it hits the back of the sofa.

 

 

Maybe he  _should_.

 

 

When he goes home, back to Murray, he’s surrounded by fans and friends and family, and it’s amazing—just as shocking as it was the first time, he thinks, and he doesn’t have to fake the crying when the cameras follow him on stage to sing  _Imagine_  to all of the people who collected into Murray, Utah, just to see him sing. 

But this time, when he goes home, he hugs his mom and says, “I’m in love with him, you know? And I know that’s hard for you to understand—but I’m in love with him, Mama.”

She doesn’t stop hugging him, just hugs tighter, and he says, “I love you too.”

 

 

When David gets back from Murray, the first thing he does is drag Cook into his hotel room and kisses him for as long as it takes someone to figure out they’re both gone, and he says it again, “I love you,” while Cook is kissing him against the door, his hand tugging at David’s hair.

Cook laughs and says, “Fuck, I think I do too.”

 

 

 

 

_I am so high, I can hear Heaven, oh but Heaven, but Heaven don’t hear me,_

Everything’s the same.

David and Cook sing  _Hero_  together, on stage, and they hit every note, somehow, because they’re together—or because Cook is amazing and chose an awesome song, maybe, but David thinks they actually complement each other, a little? He didn’t at first, though Cook sort of drowned him out, to be honest. But if David sings louder, and doesn’t try to do the growly parts like Cook? They sounds really  _good_  together, like they’re meant to be together. 

_Someone told me, love would not save us, but how could that be? Look what love gave us._

David could stand there and look at Cook, and just—just sing with him, forever. He almost wants to—almost wishes the audience and the judges would disappear, and he could just sing with Cook, here on this stage, forever. 

_Watching us, they’re watching us, fly away, woah._

The song ends.

David smiles and waits for the end—for them to announce Cook the winner, the new American Idol,  _his_  Idol. Ryan does the, “And the winner is… David…” first, and David smiles as Cook wraps his arm around him, big and warm and reassuring.

“Cook!” Ryan yells, and it’s like a cannon goes off how loud the screaming is, and how the confetti starts to drop. Cook closes his eyes and turns, the first thing he does, hugging David and whispering in his ear, “I love you.”

It’s the same as the first time, down to the confession, David realizes, except that he already knew Cook loved him—knew it like he knew how to breathe.

Cook sings the coronation song while David is skirted off the stage, with Carly and Brooke and Michael, and everyone else, and Kristy hugs him first, along with everyone else quickly. He’s happy to see this again, to be honest. This was one of the best moments of his life, seeing Cook up there as the new American Idol, because he worked so hard, he just, he deserved this, all of it, every single scream from the fans—Cook deserves all of it.

All of it.

The interviews last for ages, although David knew that they would. They always do, they always did. But Cook grins at one lady with a camera, and David realizes it’s Kim, but before she can even ask him a question, Cook says, “Man, I still can’t believe I won. This guy deserved it more than anyone,” putting an arm around David’s shoulders again.

David realizes, suddenly, that Cook won’t be asking Kim out, this time. (He’s a little giddy, knowing that, because it’s—it’s earlier, this time, but Cook is  _his_ , and it’s perfect.)

They sneak away from the press eventually, and Cook says, “Let’s go for a drive? We’ll never get away from the cameras if we stay here.”

They decide to take Cook’s car—the new one—because taking two would be ridiculous, and David kind of wants to park somewhere and just  _kiss_  Cook anyway, so one car is perfect. They climb in, not even changing clothes, and don’t ask permission from anyone—although David does text his mom  _getting away from the crowd for a minute_.

They sneak out, and the windows are tinted, so, it’s like nobody can really see it’s them, and because they’re alone, the paparazzi don’t seem to think it could be them. They’re careful for a while though, and David doesn’t get up the nerve to lean over and kiss Cook on the cheek until they’ve been driving for like ten minutes, quiet in the car. Cook is practically hyperventilating, his hands shaking on the wheel, and he says, “Jesus Christ, Archie, can you believe—we just—it’s fucking crazy.”

“Yeah,” David says, looking at Cook, grinning, as they turn onto the highway.

“I can’t—seriously, just—I just—we—Arch,” Cook is saying, and none of it really makes sense, which is funny because he’d been stringing words together pretty well for the reporters, David thinks, and he has to laugh at Cook, and tugs on his seat belt.

“Happy?” David asks, looking out the passenger window.

“Fuck yes,” Cook says, grinning. “And if we can just find a place to park, I’ll be even happier, hold on, what exit is this—“

But David can’t hear him, because there’s—there’s a truck, bright red with big wheels and black bars and David can see it crashing into them as if it had happened yesterday, as if it had happened a second ago, an age ago,  _six years from now_. He jerks to the left and grabs Cook’s hands on the wheel, and with a quick prayer that he can’t put into words quickly enough, even in his head, he pushes, hard, and hears the tires scream as the truck slams into them.

 

He wakes up to an incessant sound of beeping, and familiar music playing somewhere nearby—out of a radio, he thinks, blearily, trying to open his eyes when they feel so incredibly heavy. 

Everything else is quiet, and he blinks slowly, twice, before he realizes he’s not in his hotel room. 

He’s in a hospital room, gray, with weird flowery wallpaper covering the walls, and a pink blanket folded over his feet, and a long IV tube connected to his wrist, and a little machine with green lines. The machine is where the beeping noise had been coming from, he realizes, and he jerks up, because Cook is sitting next to him, a bandage on his arm and multiple cuts and bruises everywhere else, including one across his lip.

Cook grins, lifting a hand—a hand David realizes is holding onto  _his_ , “Hey.”


End file.
